


Something Blue

by esteoflorien



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-20 11:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2426549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteoflorien/pseuds/esteoflorien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andy receives an unexpected gift on her wedding day. A love story - but not at first.<br/>(Gen for the time being, but will build to Mirandy later on).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I.

_Marrying Nate is the logical thing_ , Andy reminded herself as she was buttoned into her dress. It was what she’d said in her heart of hearts when Nate had proposed, a seemingly thoughtless surprise one evening. She’d wanted to talk about how it was time for them to seriously discuss moving forward as a couple, and Nate had responded with the proposal, as if she’d challenged him and dared him to do it. They’d bought the ring together some days later, and Andy told herself that her lack of enthusiasm was down to the disappointment over her proposal.

The dresser took a step back. “What do you think?” she asked, smiling almost maternally at Andy’s reflection. Andy bit her lip. “It’s beautiful,” she said, and meant it: the dress was as stunning as it had been when she’d first tried it on. She’d chosen a silk bateau-neck dress, because Miranda had told her once that the neckline was flattering on her. It was fitted but not tight through her waist, and flared out into a tea-length skirt. It draped nicely now, she thought, twirling in front of the mirror. When she’d tried on the sample, she’d been horrified by the tutu-like layers of crinoline that gave the skirt several inches of stiffness.

“Very 50s chic,” said Maureen, her wedding coordinator. "I just love vintage weddings."

“Thanks,” said Andy, even though she hadn’t been going for vintage until, apparently, right this moment.

“There’s someone here to see you,” Maureen said. “I know you didn’t want people in the room, but she’s rather insistent and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

It couldn’t be, Andy thought, but there was only one woman of her acquaintance who would be so insistent to see her when she’d been very clear that she wanted to be alone. “It’s okay Maureen, you can let Miranda in.”

“I thought she looked familiar,” Maureen chirped. Andy stifled a laugh at Miranda's reaction to her preternatural cheerfulness.

“So I’ve been told,” Miranda said crisply. “That’s all.”

“Thanks for everything, Maureen,” Andy called as Maureen left, feeling obligated once again to make excuses for Miranda.

“Well, Andrea,” Miranda said, as if that was a complete thought. She sat down in the armchair beside the window. “Turn.”

Dutifully, Andy turned, and it was as if no time had passed at all. Miranda was impeccably dressed in a deep teal cocktail dress, with her hair still carefully set in her signature look. When she crossed her legs, Andy caught a glimpse of the red sole of her nude Louboutin pumps.

“It needs an accessory of some sort,” Miranda said, after several moments. “Are you wearing a veil?”

“No,” Andy replied. “Miranda, I -”

Miranda continued as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “Brooch?”

“No, this is everything,” Andy said. “Apart from the flowers.”

“Hm,” Miranda said. “I suppose your colors will be a sufficient statement in the end, assuming you’ve selected orange and pink flowers.”

“Thanks for remembering my colors, Miranda.”

“Indeed,” Miranda said. “Well.”

“Thank you for coming,” Andy said after a few minutes. It felt odd to stand while Miranda sat and looked her up and down, but she couldn’t very well do that, she’d wrinkle.

“Thank you for the invitation,” Miranda said.

“I’m really glad you’re here, actually,” Andy said, because she was. Seeing Miranda, and having her be entirely Miranda-like, just the way she remembered her, from her aloofness to her critical eye, made her feel much calmer. Miranda’s expression remained inscrutable, and Andy suddenly realized that she’d come across entirely differently. “I don’t mean that the way it sounded! I mean it honestly, like - I don’t know. You know what I meant.”

Miranda cocked her head to the side. “I don’t, but I’ll take your word that it was complimentary.”

“It was,” Andy said. “Thank you.” The room fell uncomfortably silent. Andy had never mastered the art of filling that silence with the kind of chatter to which Miranda was accustomed; that was Emily’s chief talent. Miranda would invariably complain and tell her to stop talking, but she had learned early on that Miranda hated silence far more than she hated small talk.

“Have you got all of your somethings?” Miranda asked, after several minutes. It was odd to hear her break the silence.

“What do you mean?”

Miranda shifted impatiently. “Something old, something new, something borrowed - “

“Oh! Yes,” Andy said. “My dress is new, my earrings are borrowed from my great-aunt Lucy, and my something old is my mom’s wedding band.” She wanted to kick herself when she heard her voice crack.

Miranda didn’t seem to notice, and Andy was relieved. The last thing she wanted to do on her wedding day was inform her old boss of her mother’s passing.

“You’re missing one,” Miranda said. “It’s unlike you to be so unprepared.”

Andy laughed - _i_ t was a joke, wasn’t it? - but sobered quickly when she realized Miranda wasn’t even smiling with her. She remembered many afternoons at Elias-Clarke when Miranda had wondered aloud her disappointment, _why is no one ready_ , a statement of fact rather than a question, and the insult felt almost cozily familiar.

“Something blue,” Miranda continued, pulling a small, beribboned box out of her purse. She sounded quiet, strained, defeated. Never defeated, Andy thought. Resigned. It was a word she never thought she’d pair with Miranda, but then Miranda had always reserved a special kind of derision for Nate, one on par with that for her most recent ex-husband. It was as if Andy’s decision to marry Nate was a personal affront.

Andy loosened the ribbon and opened the box. Inside was a delicate filigree ring with a brilliant blue center stone. Its facets were large and seemed to absorb the light so that it practically glowed, and came to a point at the top of the stone, a shape Andy had never seen before.

“Miranda, it’s beautiful,” she said, even though the word didn’t really do it justice, and she thought immediately of several others that would do better in its place. “Is it a sapphire?”

Miranda shook her head. “It’s a blue diamond.”

“I can’t accept this,” Andy said, almost immediately.

“Pretend it’s a sapphire then,” Miranda said, and turned away.

Andy set the box down on the table. “It’s not because it’s incredibly generous Miranda, although it is. But why are you giving me a ring on my wedding day?”

“It’s hardly a proposal, Andrea,” Miranda said dryly, and Andy laughed. That she could recognize as a joke. “It is customary for a guest to bring a gift to a wedding. I saw something at auction which I thought you would like. I wanted you to have something lovely before you consign yourself to a lifetime of misery beside a man who doesn’t deserve you. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

Andy sobered. “Nate - “

“Doesn’t deserve you. That was a statement of fact.”

“Right. So then why are you here?”

“Because you invited me,” Miranda said simply.

Andy shook her head. Miranda was undoubtedly the loveliest and strangest woman she’d ever encountered. “I’m glad you’re here, Miranda. And thank you for the beautiful gift.”

“Wear it well,” Miranda said, finally turning back around. “You make a beautiful bride. I wish you much happiness.”

“Thank you,” Andy said, and reached out to shake her hand, since a hug was out of the question, but Miranda turned on her heel and left.

~

Fifteen minutes later, Andy found herself contending with someone far more vocal in disapproving of the wedding: her father. She had congratulated herself on her decision to get ready on her own, saying that it felt wrong to have anyone else in the room when her mother couldn’t be there. Upon hearing that, Lily, Claire, and Alison practically volunteered to get ready by themselves, and Andy had barely spared them a thought this morning, when it was so very easy to miss her mother. Even if she had her own, unvoiced doubts about the marriage, it was still her wedding day, and she was still standing before a mirror in her Audrey Hepburn dress, and her mother was gone.

“You don’t have to do this,” her father said, straightening his tie.  He was looking over her shoulder, and his presence seemed only to underscore her absence. He’d come in shortly after Miranda left, with Charlotte the photographer in tow and snapping away at the daddy-daughter first look. Andy did her best to pose, but Miranda had unsettled her, and Charlotte left not long after to take portraits of the bridal party. “You can get all the way down the aisle and change your mind. If you’re not entirely happy, I don’t want you to do this.”

Andy burst into tears. It was hardly the first time they’d had this conversation, of course; her father, while he had been unfailingly supportive, financially and otherwise, had certainly had reservations about the marriage. It seems like it’s come out of nowhere, he would say. We’ve been together for six years! Andy would reply, but it never seemed to make a difference. He questioned Nate’s plan to take six months off to get his own restaurant off the ground, and at first Andy had thought it simply boiled down to the fact that he didn’t want her to be the sole breadwinner. But when the conversations continued as the planning progressed, rehashing the same points over and over again, it became apparent that he father’s doubts went deeper than that. The worst part was that she had never said anything about her own uncertainties; he’d come up with this all on his own. She wondered if she hadn’t been excited enough, animated enough.

“Then it’s settled,” her father said, putting his hand on her back and startling her out of her thoughts.

“No!” Andy exclaimed, reaching blindly for a Kleenex. The wedding coordinator obliged; Andy recognized her bright red nails. She kept her head down so she wouldn’t have to look at Maureen’s face.

“Could you give us a minute?” her father asked, and Maureen scuttled out of the room.

“I have to get married today,” Andy said. “I am getting married today. You’ve spent so much money, and everyone is here, and I want to marry Nate. I want to marry him, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted!” But the words sounded empty to her own ears.

“Andy, I promise you that cancelling the wedding will be much, much cheaper than a divorce,” her father said. “We could have a family reunion. Or something. There’s a hundred people out there. Believe me, they’ll eat, wedding or no wedding.”

“I want to marry Nate, Dad,” Andy said, dabbing at her face. “That’s what I really, truly want.”

“Why?”

“Why does _everyone_ keep trying to talk me out of this? It's like the only person who wants to see us married is Lily.” It occurred to her, even as she said it, that she should have mentioned three names: her own, her friend's, and her fiance's. 

Her father pulled out the chair from the vanity and sat down. “It’s a valid question.”

“We’ve been together for six years, Dad. We’re at the marrying point, where you either say, okay, we’re in it for the long haul, or we’re not going to waste any more time.”

“You don’t marry someone because that’s the logical next step, Andy. Those marriages never work out.” He rubbed his forehead. “I’ll give you some space, honey. And even if we get to the end of the aisle, you can always change your mind.”

She made it to the landing of the staircase before she practically doubled over from nausea and anxiety and that damned, ill-advised glass of champagne. It was her father who spoke to Maureen, Maureen who handled everything, and Nate who stormed out without a word, his lovely family following shortly behind. Andy watched them leave the hotel from the window in her dressing room, and found that she regretted losing his sister, the sister she’d always wanted but never had, the most.

 

 


	2. II.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy settles into life as a newly single woman, with help from her dad and Doug, and no help, predictably, from Emily.

Andy found herself contemplating the ring often in the weeks after the wedding that wasn’t. She’d given her engagement ring back to Nate, of course; it was only polite. But after two years of having Nate’s ring nestled on her hand, she missed the weight of it on her hand. Wearing her gift from Miranda was not an option, of course; like all the other gifts, save for the toaster from Aunt Sandra that she’d already used, Andy fully intended to return it. Still, it was very last on her list. The others had all gone much more quickly; most everything had come from their registries, so she left the bulk of the work in the capable hands of Macy’s and Crate & Barrel. The sales associates looked at her with frustrating sympathy once they’d heard what had happened. There seemed to be no convincing them that she was actually happy with her decision. That kind of contentment hadn’t come easily, of course. She’d spent many miserable evenings trying to reacquaint herself with a quiet, empty apartment. She hadn’t been able to go through with the marriage, but at the same time, she’d forgotten what it felt like to live alone.

Nevertheless, there was the matter of the ring. Andy found it vaguely amusing that she’d had less uncertainty over what to do with her engagement ring. As always, it was Miranda who left her flummoxed; it seemed some things never changed. She estimated that the stone was only about a quarter of a carat, but it was hardly a token gift. With a bit of research she found that similar Victorian-era clear diamond rings ran well into the thousands; she had no idea what Miranda might have spent on a blue diamond bought at auction. Truth be told, she hadn’t the faintest idea why Miranda thought that a blue diamond ring would be an appropriate wedding gift to a former employee. Andy was almost more grateful that Miranda had attended the wedding than she was for the gift. Knowing Miranda’s schedule of commitments as intimately as she did, she was stunned that she’d managed to make time for it at all. That was the real gift, Andy mused, watching the light dance on her ring, but the ring was lovely nonetheless, and she was sorry to have to return it, firstly because it really did look lovely on her hand, and secondly, because she’d never received a proper gift - not a castoff - from Miranda before.

Returning the ring safely to Miranda was problematic, however: there was no way she’d bring it to Elias-Clarke or Miranda’s townhouse herself, and she certainly wasn’t going to send it via messenger. It seemed ridiculous to mail it back when they lived in the same city. That left her with choosing the lesser of two evils, where the common denominator was begging a favor from a friend: calling Emily, or calling Nigel. She pondered the benefits and risks of each while eating chicken lo mein and watching a documentary about lapidaries and gemcutting on YouTube. Every so often the ring caught the light and she wondered if indeed she really had to give it back.

“You have to give it back, Andy,” her dad said sternly, during their weekly FaceTime chat. “Put it closer so I can get  a better look.”

Andy held it up to the camera and turned in around gently for a few moments, until her dad took off his reading glasses and sat back.

“You don’t suppose she’d sell it to you,” he said after a few moments. “It really is lovely, if not a bizarre choice.”

“Are you going to fund it?” Andy asked, and her father burst out laughing.

With all other options exhausted, Andy sat down on and called Emily. Emily wouldn’t be at all sympathetic, but at least she wouldn’t ask questions like Nigel would. Nigel would want to know what happened and why, and then why Miranda had gone to her wedding, and why she had been invited in the first place, and it would have been an endless stream of questions until they worked their way back four and a half years to when she’d thrown her company Blackberry into the fountain in the Place de la Concorde. And Andy was in no mood to rehash. So, Emily it was.

“You can’t return a gift from Miranda!” Emily balked. She’d barely said hello.

“But Em, I didn’t actually marry Nate. So I have to return the gift, it’s not right.”

“I imagine Miranda is as glad you left that line cook as you are,” Emily said. “I don’t see what the problem is, if there is one, and why it involves me.”

Andy sighed. “Because it’s polite. If you’d have come to the wedding and brought a gift, you’d have gotten it back by now.” She had invited Emily out of politeness; she couldn’t very well have sent an invitation to Miranda, knowing that Emily would open it, without inviting Emily herself.

“If I had known you’d leave him at the altar, Andrea, I’d have been in the front row.”

“Thanks, Em,” And replied after a moment. There didn’t seem to be an alternative response. “So I was just wondering if you could give Miranda a note and her gift back. I could meet you near Elias-Clarke on Monday morning on my way into the office. It’s just that I don’t want to trust it to the mail or whatever, and I don’t have time to stop in, you know, I have to be in the newsroom early…” She trailed off. The excuse sounded terribly flimsy.

“Andrea, this discussion is entirely pointless because you should not, under any circumstances, return a gift from Miranda Priestly. I don’t even know how you are seriously entertaining the thought.”

“Look Em, I really do need help. Come on, you owe me one.”

“Oh please,” Emily said. “That was an eternity ago. Besides, as I’ve been trying to tell you, only an idiot would return a gift from Miranda Priestly, and you are many things, but stupid is not one of them.”

“But Em - “ Andy began, but the phone beeped in her ear, and Emily was gone.

~

Monday morning came and went, and though she walked the long way around so that she’d pass Elias-Clarke, Andy didn’t see Emily waiting outside. So much for that.

After spending the day admiring it on her finger - it couldn’t very well stay in her bag, she thought, if it were stolen she couldn’t possibly replace it -  she resolved to ask Doug his advice. They had taken to meeting for a drink Mondays after work, mostly because Doug was convinced that, having been in a relationship for six years, she needed to be around people in order to, as he put it, “heal the wounds of lost love.” Andy doubted sincerely that it counted as lost love since she had essentially told Nate to _get_ lost, but she couldn’t deny that it was nice to actually see someone outside of the newsroom and talk about something other than politics - national politics, city politics, office politics, or otherwise. Unfortunately, Doug’s favorite topic of conversation seemed to be her love life, thought Miranda’s ring had distracted him for a bit.

“Wow,” he said when he saw it. “Too bad she didn’t give you stuff like this when you worked for her.”

 _She did_ , Andy wanted to remind him, but her friends had always had a blind spot where Miranda was concerned, even Lily, even as she toted around her Marc Jacobs bag.

“You’ve still got to give it back though,” he said after a while. “And you should probably stop wearing it.”

“I’m making sure it’s safe!” Andy insisted, but started to laugh. “Oh come on Doug, like you wouldn’t be wearing it too.”

Doug shrugged. “Still. Suck it up and go talk to her if you don’t want to mail it back.”

“You’re right, of course,” Andy said. “Besides, it’ll be good. I’ll see someone besides work and you.”

“On which subject,” Doug said, “I have a proposition for you.”

The server chose that moment to arrive with their drinks, and Andy had to laugh at Doug’s palpable frustration.

“What sort of proposition?”

Doug smiled. “You need a rebound boyfriend.”

Andy ran her finger around the rim of her glass, letting the sugar rough up her fingertips. She’d let Doug order for her before she got there, and as she had feared, that had been a big mistake. She was now staring at a strawberry margarita that appeared to have been dyed pink with Pepto-Bismol. “That’s awful.”

“I say this as one who has frequently been the rebound boyfriend,” Doug said. “It’s integral to the moving-on process.”

“And this guy is going to be my rebound?”

Doug poked at his phone. “Look, he looks better in this one.”

Andy shrugged. When Doug had asked her type and she’d said tall, blond, and muscular just to shut him up, she hadn’t predicted that he’d actually take it to heart. Arthur was “definitely tall and blond,” Doug said, “and two out of three isn’t bad for a rebound boyfriend.” Andy felt sick flicking through his pictures. Arthur had a wide, friendly face, and, judging by his drinks of choice and his style, looked to be the kind of guy she could hang out with on occasion, but not the kind of guy she would target as a boyfriend, much less a rebound boyfriend. Certainly not a faux boyfriend. And now she was stuck in this ridiculous spot.

“Thanks, Doug,” she said.

“You’ll thank me later, I promise. Everyone needs a rebound boyfriend.”

“I’ll remember that,” she said, and turned miserably towards her margarita.

~

The next morning, she put on her best suit and paid attention to the accessories she chose. For the first time in what felt like years, she spent time teasing her hair into a topknot, smoothing her flyaways and running the flatiron over her bangs. When she worked for Runway and dressed like this, she never managed to shake the feeling that she was putting on a costume.

She’d decided to stop by Elias-Clarke on her lunch hour. With any luck, Miranda would be out to lunch and she could just leave the ring and her note on Miranda’s desk and call it a day. She kept her sunglasses on inside the building, hoping, she told herself, not to be noticed. She felt strange, as if everyone should be staring at her as she walked towards Miranda’s office, and when she realized that no one was paying her any mind after all, she was slightly disappointed.

“Can I help you?” asked the petite blonde young woman who was seated at _her_ desk.

“Yes, hi,” Andy said, “I actually used to work here, I was you, in fact, and I was wondering if Miranda was in.”

The girl raised her eyebrow. “I’m sorry, Miranda is in a meeting.” She sounded robotic; Andy wondered if she had ever sounded like that.

“Perfect,” Andy said with relief, “that’s just perfect. I have something I wanted to leave for her, a thank-you, I’ll just go put this on her desk and then I’ll get out of your hair.”

She brushed past the desk as if she still worked there, entirely ignoring the new Emily, and pushed into Miranda’s office.

“Emily?” Miranda said. She was standing at the window. “Emily, can you please impress upon her management that she is not, despite her illustrious career on Nickelodeon, ‘young Hollywood,’ and we therefore cannot feature her in the Young Hollywood issue. If I have to - “ She turned around and stopped when she saw Andy, who had, until that point, been enjoying Miranda's rant, and wondering who on earth she was talking about. She needed to keep up with pop culture. That had been a perk of _Runway_ , actually; for one year, she'd known exactly who was who whenever she read celebrity gossip.  

“Andrea,” Miranda said. “What a surprise.” In fact, she sounded utterly unsurprised to see her; it was as if she’d been expecting her. Andy wondered if Emily had said anything.

“I’m so sorry to barge in, Miranda,” Andy said. “Emily, um, the new Emily said that you were in a meeting.”

Miranda sat down and peered at her over her glasses. “And?”

“So you know that Nate and I didn’t get married, of course - “

“Thank goodness,” Miranda said blithely. “I’m impressed, as I always have been, by your independent spirit.”

Andy couldn’t tell if that was a compliment or otherwise, but with Miranda, it didn’t do to dwell. She set the box and her note on Miranda’s desk. “I just wanted to return your very generous gift with my most sincere thanks for your taking the time to come,” she said, reciting her note practically verbatim. “It really meant a lot to me that you were there, and the gift was beautiful and thoughtful.”

Miranda picked up the note, read it, and tucked it onto her pile of mail. “The ring was a gift, Andrea.”

“I know,” Andy said, “and I’m so sorry for the inconvenience. It was just the right thing for me to do, and because of that, the right thing for me to do now is to give it back to you.” She winced. That had sounded much better in her head.

“As I said, Andrea, it was a gift. Wear it well.”

“Miranda, I really can’t keep it.”

“Well, it’s a gift, Andrea. I suppose you may do with it as you please.”

“If you won’t take it back, Miranda, I’ll wear it and think of you. I wouldn’t ever give it away.”

“Good,” said Miranda. “Please send Emily in.”

She was so used to being dismissed that it wasn’t until she was in the elevator that it registered that Miranda said ‘please.’

~

On Saturday night, Andy dressed for her rebound date in the same way she would have for any other evening out, digging a basic DVF shirtdress out of her closet and accessorizing it into an evening look. Emily might have gotten the remnants of her Runway wardrobe, but she’d at least kept the knowledge she’d gained, and simply became a better shopper. She knew when to shop to the sales at Macy’s for Calvin Klein staples for the office, and spent the surplus on the high-end pieces she lusted after but couldn’t readily afford. Miranda had been correct, though: when she last scored a pair of CK dress pants with slim pockets for $15 at Macy’s, she wondered who at Runway had determined that pockets were back, and how long ago the feature had run. She imagined it was Emily, finally getting her revenge. Andy despised pockets on her dress pants since they never fit her hips properly, but she was in no position to pass up $15 pants. So she had patiently sewn them shut, and that was that.

When she met Arthur at the appointed time, just outside the restaurant, he’d recognized her immediately. Apparently Doug had let Arthur browse his Facebook too.

“Hi,” he said jovially, sounding just as friendly as she’d imagined him to look. He was tall and blond, slightly heavyset, and clearly had come straight from the office, dressed as he was in a gray sportcoat and button-down. He looked like a young Depardieu turned businessman. “You must be Doug’s friend Andy.”

“That’s me,” she said, and shook his hand. “It’s really nice to meet you.”

Arthur laughed. “No, it’s not. I’m your rebound date, aren’t I? You’re probably wishing you didn’t have to meet me.”

Just like that, the whole tenor of the evening changed. “You know, this whole concept of the rebound boyfriend was completely new to me.”

“Doug’s convinced it’s the way of the future. ‘Pave the way to a longterm future with an interim now.’ I think he’s trying to turn it into a self-help empire.”

Andy considered it; she wasn’t going to agree because she didn’t know how friendly Arthur and Doug actually were, but it didn’t sound too far off the mark. When Doug wasn’t counseling her on her love life, he talked constantly about wellness seminars.

“I should probably tell you I’m not interested in a rebound boyfriend,” Andy settled for saying.

“I should probably tell you I’m not interested in being a rebound boyfriend,” Arthur replied. “But you looked friendly, and if it wasn’t me, it’d be someone else, so I figured why not? I’ve always wanted to go on a non-date with a reporter.”

Their non-date turned out to be far more enjoyable than she’d thought, and while she didn’t expect to see much of Arthur socially since they had next-to-nothing in common - Arthur spent half the night trying to figure out why Doug had pegged him as her ideal rebound boyfriend - Andy deemed him to be a useful professional connection. “You want to know which way the economic wind is blowing,” Arthur said, several times, “ask the guy in luxury sales.” Andy didn’t have much of an interest in luxury sales, but she’d learned early on in her career that having a wide network - or having a friend with one - was often the key to success. If Arthur could help fill in the blanks on the next rich lady fluff piece she was assigned, she would count the evening as smashing.

Arthur added her on LinkedIn the next day, with a note to ‘be well,’ and Andy realized that she was actually feeling grateful for her rebound date.

~

She was surprised to find herself in the cafeteria at Elias-Clarke. Stranger things had happened, however, and besides, she seemed to be enjoying herself, so there couldn’t be any harm in her surprise lunch date with Miranda Priestly, of all people.

“Why on earth would you agree to a rebound date?” Miranda asked. She looked thoroughly confused. “Isn’t avoiding undesirable companionship the point of canceling the wedding or asking for a divorce?”

“He didn’t really give me the option to refuse!”

“Well,” Miranda said haughtily, “if you allow yourself to be painted into a corner like that, that’s your own fault.”

“I enjoyed myself, thank you very much,” Andy said. “Arthur was very nice.”

“But lacking in potential.”

Andy laughed. “Yes, Miranda, he certainly lacked potential.”

Miranda chose that moment to lean over and cover Andy’s hand with her own and --

Andy sat bolt upright, and realized she was in bed, where it was dark, cool, and decidedly not Elias-Clarke. The cafeteria at Elias-Clarke had always been the stuff of nightmares, but it had been a long time since she’d had a Runway dream. Andy sighed, looking at the clock to decide whether it was late enough to stay awake. It was four-thirty. If she got up now, she could make it to the office by seven, which would mean she could, in theory, leave a couple of hours early, go for a run in the park. Maybe she just needed a break.

Still, it wasn’t lost on her that in this particular Runway dream, Miranda had actually laughed.

~

She hadn’t pushed herself like this since the last time she ran along the lakefront at Northwestern. She missed that about Chicago, the way that the lakefront was kept mostly preserved from development. She hadn’t been able to shake the dream out of her head all day. Miranda’s smiling face had popped up in the middle of the features editorial meeting, when she was meant to be updating the team on the progress of her article on museum philanthropy and the ever-present debate over ticketed admission. She’d had a singular stroke of genius on her run, however; she resolved to pitch the editor on Monday that she should take a short working trip to Chicago, since the Art Institute had, more or less successfully, switched to an entirely paid ticketing plan several years before. To her frustration, the thought came unbidden - what if Miranda was in Chicago too?

She turned home and took a scalding shower, the kind where she stood under the spray and let it run over her, clearing her mind in the steam.

“You look like a soccer mom,” Doug said, with disapproval. “What have you been up to?”

“I went in early so I could cut out for a run,” she said. “I didn’t think I had to dress up for one of my oldest friends, thank you very much.”

“I hope you didn’t dress like that on your rebound date.”

“About that,” Andy said, about to tell him to never, under any circumstances, set her up again. Arthur had been a lucky break. But he looked so eager, so excited at the possibility of having been helpful, that she couldn’t do it. “I am going to concede that you were right. It was good to get dressed up and go out and have intelligent conversation for a night.”

“See?” Doug said triumphantly, raising his scotch towards her. “All you needed was a rebound boyfriend.”

“I’ll never doubt you again, Doug,” she said.

“We just need an interim now to get to our permanent future,” Doug mused. “Do you like the way that sounds?”


	3. III.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassidy's capstone project causes some discord between Andy and Miranda, but they find, as many do, that a disagreement opens the door to a necessary conversation.

Andy soon forgot about the dream, thanks to the flood of assignments and deadlines crossing her desk. She took to wearing Miranda’s ring on her right hand, which typically rested below one of the brightest lights in the room; periodically she would catch herself staring at it. Miranda really had make the perfect choice, assuming she had chosen it at all. It was an antique, without appearing too vintage; it was something different, but not entirely outside the box; it was low-profile and unobtrusive. Andy hated the thought that Emily (or worse, new Emily) might have chosen it, and she couldn’t put her finger on the reason why. She chalked it up to frustration with Emily’s attitude and left it at that.

When Emily called her, on a slow Tuesday afternoon, however, her voice brought with it all the tension and confusion and utter awkwardness of the past months, as well as the hazy, remembered happiness of her dream.

“Hi Em,” she said, hoping she sounded relatively normal. “This is a surprise.”

“Quite,” Emily said. “I was taken aback as well.”

Andy sighed. It never did any good to engage Emily when she was in a mood like this, but stopping herself was difficult. Silence reigned for several moments.

“Did you need something, Em?”

“Of course I did!” Emily exclaimed, as if there had been no break at all. “I’m not calling for a friendly chat. Cassidy is currently working on an important project, and she requires your assistance.”

In retrospect, Andy decided, she should have been seeing red at Emily’s pronouncement. But she was so taken aback - and, she thought ruefully, so accustomed to doing the twin’s homework - that she simply asked, “Why?”

Emily sighed. “She is currently completing her capstone project at Dalton. It entails an internship of some sort. She has decided, and Miranda has approved, that she fulfill the internship requirements with you. For whatever reason, she has decided to be a _journalist_.” She pronounced the word with such derision that Andy found it almost comical. Insulting, yes, but still rather funny. It was as if Emily had no appreciation for the fact that the entire industry over which her beloved _Runway_ reigned was not dependent on journalism.

“Wouldn’t it be more expedient if she interned with someone at _Runway_? I mean it would make more sense.”

“Miranda has decided that this is the ideal arrangement, Andrea. For God’s sake, Miranda is not a _writer_! She is the editor! And for whatever reason, Cassidy has it in her head that she wants to write. That means she’s your responsibility.”

“Okay Em, this definitely isn’t your fault, so I’m sorry if I’m snapping. But I don’t know if this is something I can take on at the moment. I might be going to Chicago, I’m not sure.”

“That is not my problem,” Emily said. “I’ll send you an email with Cassidy’s contact information and you may make arrangements from there.”

“Em,” Andy said, rather more forcefully than she had really intended, “I need to speak with Miranda before I make plans with Cassidy. That is non-negotiable. Tell me when I can see Miranda.”

“Fine,” Emily said. “Please hold.”

Andy stared at her phone, fairly stunned into silence. Emily returned after what felt like ten minutes. “Miranda will not see you on _Runway_ time. You’ll have to meet her at the townhouse. Saturday, 11am. I trust you remember the address.”

“Yeah of course I do, Em, but Saturday - “

“Excellent. I shall call to confirm on Friday afternoon,” Emily said, and promptly hung up.

She sat back for a moment, trying to figure out exactly how she’d gotten wrapped up with Miranda Priestly again. It wasn’t that she minded working with Cassidy, providing she had matured and was serious about the work, it was that she deserved to be asked, not instructed. She’d have to set Miranda straight on that come Saturday. But in the meantime, there were practicalities to address.

She knocked on the desk that served as her boss, features managing editor Jim Brewer’s, doorbell. “I have a problem,” she said.

“Join the parade,” Jim replied. “What’s up?”

“Miranda Priestly has apparently ordained that I’m going to supervise her daughter’s high school capstone ‘internship.’ Because apparently one of the twins has decided she’s going to be a journalist. Is there a policy on non-recruited interns? Who aren’t in college yet?”

Jim shrugged. “If there is a policy, I’m pretty positive we can bend it for Miranda Priestly’s daughter. Not for nothing but I’d still like to have a paper to run by the time the kid graduates. Go see HR.”

“So you don’t have a problem with it?”

“A problem with you having a freebie assistant for a couple of weeks? No. Let’s talk after,” he said, and turned back to his computer.

HR was less willing to make exceptions for Miranda Priestly’s daughter, but once Andy explained the importance of giving Cassidy an unprecedented high school internship - both because of her mother and, Andy congratulated herself, because such _enthusiasm_ deserved to be encouraged in a young person! - they acquiesced. Andy left with a stack of papers for Miranda to read and sign and actually felt vaguely excited about the prospect of mentoring a budding writer.

~

Cassidy answered the door when she rang promptly at eleven. “Hi Andy,” she said, fairly brightly. “I’m sorry Caroline and I got you in trouble that day.”

“That’s okay,” Andy said. She was stunned that the little bratty preteen she remembered had grown up into such a nice - at least thus far - young woman. “I’m looking forward to having you work with us.”

“Really?” Cassidy asked, with palpable excitement. “Are you really going to let me do it?”

Andy sighed. At least Miranda hadn’t told Cassidy it was a done deal. “Assuming your mom signs off on some paperwork from HR, yes.”

“That’s amazing,” Cassidy said, and sounded perfectly genuine. “Come on in.”

Caroline was clicking away on her laptop but made a point of saying hello. It was a nice change. Andy didn’t know why she expected the twins to be taller versions of their twelve-year-old selves. They had certainly distinguished themselves from each other; but why wouldn’t they? Andy couldn’t imagine being in high school and dressing alike, and neither, apparently, could the twins. Caroline was seated at the kitchen island in a skirt and crisp Oxford blouse, her hair pinned neatly back with bobby pins. Cassidy looked far more relaxed for a Saturday morning, in jeans and a pretty knit top with dolman sleeves.

“Do you want something to drink, Andy?” Cassidy asked. “We’ve got water, iced tea, lemonade…”

Maybe they’d sold the twins short, she thought. If you’re a kid and everyone expects you to act like devil spawn, well, you probably would.

“Lemonade would be great. Thanks, Cassidy.”

Miranda came in just as Cassidy was setting her lemonade on the counter. “Andrea, thank you for coming,” she said. “Girls, please give us some time.”

Caroline wordlessly folded up her things and walked out, her low heels ringing on the tile. She looked terribly thin, at least to Andy. But then she’d been out of Runway for so long that she supposed she was no longer accustomed to seeing runway-ready models all the time, and if anything, Caroline looked like a model. _But thin_ , Andy thought. _Thin_.

Cassidy, meanwhile, had pulled out a binder and was seated with her hands folded as if ready to begin an editorial meeting at Runway. She looked terribly enthusiastic. Maybe Andy could talk Jim into assigning Cassidy a small project, assuming she actually had a background in journalistic writing, to give her her first byline.

“Cassidy,” Miranda said lowly, in a tone that Andy recognized well from her Runway days, “I asked for time with Andrea.” It was the same way she spoke to errant assistant editors who got in her way. She wasn’t yelling - Miranda never yelled, of course - but her tone brooked no argument. Cassidy pouted and gathered up her things, sliding her chair in rather loudly.

“We’ll discuss this later,” Miranda said, watching Cassidy disappear down the stairs.

“Now, Andrea,” Miranda said. “You will be - “

“Hang on a second, Miranda,” Andy said. She took her cues from Miranda, and kept her voice level and low. “You can ask me to help out by supervising Cassidy’s internship, and I’ll gladly do so. She’s a wonderful girl. But you don’t get to tell me what I will or will not do.”

Miranda seemed stunned into silence. Andy hadn’t expected to say any of that at the outset, and certainly not phrased quite so plainly. But Cassidy’s face had visibly fallen, and Andy could hardly blame her. Miranda had spoken to her like she was an employee, not like her daughter. Andy’s mother had been gone for three years, and Andy had been far from a perfect teenager, but she’d always heard affection in her mother’s voice - exasperated affection, perhaps, but it was still there. Her mother hadn’t been the shouting type, so it was out of character when she did, but sitting here, in Miranda’s practically sterile townhouse, with its picture-perfect decor but lack of life, she was reminded to be grateful for what she had.

“Really,” Miranda said lowly. “Indeed. Do tell me more, Andrea.”

Andy swallowed. She knew Miranda well enough to know when she had to be very, very deliberate in her choice of words. But she also knew Miranda well enough to know that she was a mess of contradictions, despite how outwardly perfectly put-together she always managed to be. It was hard to reconcile, for example, this almost terrifying Miranda with the woman who had made time for her wedding, or the woman who gave her gifts with the one who made demand after demand, or the woman who spoke so coldly to her children when Andy knew perfectly well that the girls were just as precious to Miranda as she had been to her mother.

“Well, I can say this because you’re no longer my boss, so, um, thanks for that,” Andy said. It was laughable, really. Maybe she’d laugh about this later, over a very large glass of wine. Or two. “But look, you are really hard to figure out. You do lovely things for me, you make time in your schedule for my wedding and didn’t kick me out of your office when I barged in. We have a whole, civilized, adult conversation. And then you turn around and give me orders like I’m one of your assistants. I’m not anymore, Miranda. I’m an independent, thinking adult. I thought you knew that. I would just like you to respect that.”

Miranda’s mouth had thinned into a very fine line. When she said nothing, Andy barrelled on. If this was her one opportunity to really have her say, to actually verbalize everything she’d been running over in her head for the last four years - oh, if only I’d had the guts to say that! - she damn well would. And if it meant she’d spend the rest of her career in Chicago or St. Louis or, back home in Cincinnati, Andy had a feeling she’d be okay with that.

“You basically ordered me to supervise Cassidy because you were afraid I’d say no. I think that’s your motivation a whole lot more often than you want to acknowledge. Guess what: I’m really excited to supervise her. I’m looking forward to showing an aspiring journalist the ropes. And she’s a good kid, just like Caroline. But if you and I are going to make this happen for Cassidy, you’re going to have to show me a little respect.”

“I think it’s best if you leave,” Miranda said.

“Of course,” Andy said, as coolly as possible. “These papers here are permission forms and releases. HR would like you to sign them before Cassidy comes to the office. My card is on top, and Cassidy -” she stopped, and raised her voice, “Cassidy can also find my contact info on the website. Have her email me and we’ll get started.”

She dropped the stack of papers on Miranda’s counter with a satisfying thud, just as she had with the Harry Potter manuscript.

“Please tell her I’m looking forward to working with her,” she said, and gathered up her things, and let herself out.

~

She heard nothing from any of the Priestly ladies for several days, but since she also didn’t hear from Emily, Andy rather thought she had emerged from her outburst relatively unscathed.

But on Thursday, an email from Cassidy turned up in her inbox: _I still can’t believe you said all that to mom. Wow. She’s still letting you work with me though. Can I call you?_

Andy laughed. At least she’d earned some of the girl’s respect. She replied back with her phone number and that set off a flurry of texts. Through them she learned that Miranda had indeed been furious, but she also sounded rather surprisingly subdued. But then, Andy had half-expected a mob of clackers bearing torches and pitchforks to turn up outside the _Mirror_. She began to enjoy her conversation with Cassidy, taking some photos of the office to show her where she’d be working, and summarizing that day’s editorial meeting. They had just made plans for Cassidy to stop in after school on Monday when Cassidy messaged to say that Miranda had requested her phone number and _idk i thought i should probably give it to her...sry? not really though lol._

Brilliant, Andy thought, before assuring Cassidy that of course Miranda should have her cell number, and that it actually was on the card she’d left. For one thing, she didn’t mind being friendly with Cassidy, but she was definitely not going to team up with her against her mother.

Miranda called her practically immediately thereafter. “Andy Sachs,” she said, just as she always did.

“Are you available for dinner this evening?”

And sat back, stunned into silence. “I am,” she said. “I’m off the clock at six today. Just tell me when and where.” She impressed herself with her composure. At least to her own ears, she sounded perfectly normal.

“I shall meet you with the car,” Miranda said. “Unless you would prefer to arrange your own transportation.”

Andy bit her lip. “I’m happy to come on my own,” she said. “But timing would depend on the accessibility of the restaurant.”

“Ah,” said Miranda, and Andy began to suspect that she hadn’t quite thought this entire thing through. Then she realized that this might very well be the first time she’d made her own dinner plans in years, and she smiled.

“It sounds like it would be best if you come get me,” Andy said. “I don’t want to be an inconvenience.”

“I shall see you at six,” Miranda said. “Promptly at six.”

Andy smiled, and wished Miranda could see it. “I’ll see you then.”

~

Andy was waiting outside at five to six, and spotted Miranda’s town car idling halfway down the block. She contemplated calling Miranda, but decided against it - it seemed vaguely obtrusive and stalkerish, and besides, she was curious as to how long Miranda would actually wait before pulling up the curb. The car eased back into traffic at precisely 5:59, and sure enough, the driver stopped right in front of her at precisely 6:00.

Miranda was waiting for her as she slid into the back seat. She smiled and tried to catch Miranda’s eye, but Miranda’s gaze seemed fixed on the windshield.

“It’s nice to see you,” she said, after several moments. She’d forgotten how smoothly Miranda’s town car rode; there wasn’t even the noise of the engine to mask the silence.

“Is it?” Miranda asked.

The problem with Miranda - or rather, one of the many problems with Miranda - was that she wasn’t ever certain if a question was actually meant to be rhetorical.

“Of course it is.”

“I wasn’t sure,” Miranda said. “You were fairly unequivocal in your opinion of me.”

“I’m sorry,” Andy said, and it was true. While she didn’t regret what she’d said, she would have liked to found a gentler way to say it - and preferably not within earshot of Caroline and Cassidy. “I could have phrased it better and I’m sorry.”

Miranda tilted her head back against the seat. She seemed tired and drawn; Andy wasn’t in the business of flattering herself, but if she didn’t know better, she’d have thought that Miranda might actually have been turning their whole conversation, one-sided as it was, over and over in her head.

“Is that how you honestly feel?”

Andy sighed. “Honestly? Yes. It isn’t fair to me for you to just tell me what to do, because I don’t work for you anymore. And if I’m going to have a professional relationship with your daughter, and mentor her for this project, she needs to respect me. Unfortunately, she won’t respect me if it’s clear that _you_ don’t respect me.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Miranda said. “I certainly wouldn’t wish to give Cassidy that impression because it isn’t true.”

Andy smiled. “So, going forward: just ask me. I think it’s pretty obvious that I will want to see you or help out, so if I say no, it’s because there’s something else that I have to do, and that I can’t change. I mean, I invited you to the wedding! Even though I knew you were basically going to insult Nate.”

Miranda’s lips tightened into a smirk. “I knew you hadn’t invited me for my company.”

Andy looked at her in shock. “Um, why else would I have invited you to the wedding?”

Miranda’s smirk turned into a triumphant smile. “You needed a sounding board! Someone to simply insist you not go through with it.”

Andy frowned, but Miranda looked so pleased with herself that she couldn’t really argue the point. After all, in the end, Miranda was kind of right.

“However, I will acknowledge that I was unfair to you professionally, and there was no reason to assume the same would hold true in this particular scenario.”

Andy sighed. “I’m not sure that’s exactly what I was getting at, but thanks.” It seemed to be as close an apology as she was ever going to get, and Andy knew to quit while she was ahead, at least where Miranda was concerned.

“So, where are we having dinner?” she asked, after several moments. Roy seemed to be driving leisurely, without purpose, in the way that he always did whenever Miranda felt like thinking in the car.

“Ah,” Miranda said. “I was unable to secure a reservation.”

Andy narrowed her eyes. “ _You_ couldn’t get a reservation?”

“I may have forgotten to make a reservation,” Miranda amended, and Andy thought she sounded sheepish, but perhaps it was her own imagination.

“Oh honestly,” Andy said. “Where do you want to go?”

Miranda shrugged. “Italian would be nice, you know the places I like,” she said, noncommittally.

Andy hadn’t worked for her for four years, so she frankly had no idea where Miranda liked to eat anymore, but she did know what she liked in Italian, and what _she_ liked was Eataly. She pressed the button and gave Roy the address, catching his eye in the rearview mirror. She had forgotten much of what she’d been through during her year at Runway, but it seemed some things never changed. This, for example, was Roy’s way of wishing her luck.

Andy fairly jumped out of the car after Roy opened the door, mostly so that she could catch Miranda’s expression when she realized where they were.

Miranda did not disappoint. She stepped out and looked over her sunglasses and said simply, “Oh, Andrea.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Andy said. “You need a little fun every now and again. We’ll do a little shopping, have dinner, and maybe pick out some pastries for the girls afterwards. Fun!” She sounded too bright to her own ears, especially considering that Miranda was, basically stuck. She had let Andy pick the place, and now she’d have fun, like it or not.

Miranda sighed. “Lead on,” she said, with a long-suffering sigh. Andy stifled a laugh, but bit her lip. “Just remember, in the future, that when I say ‘dining out,’ I am not referring to a glorified food court.”

Andy laughed, because _in the future_ meant there would be a next time, and for whatever reason, that made her very, very happy.


	4. IV.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy is proud when Cassidy makes a splash during her first week at the Mirror, but Miranda continues to elude her.

In spite of her initial, readily apparent disdain, Andy began to suspect that Miranda might actually be enjoying herself. If nothing else, Miranda enjoyed flattery and she liked to shop, and the effusive gentleman expounding on the many varieties of olive oil had managed to capture her attention. Since budget was no obstacle, lesser brands were immediately discounted and the sommelier, for want of a better word, had begun introducing increasingly expensive bottles. Andy had no idea what to call olive oil aficionados, but when James encouraged Miranda to notice the ‘slight sweetness of the almond and vanilla notes,’ he might as well have been have talking about the really nice spanna that she’d had last year on her dad’s birthday.

“Andrea,” Miranda said, and Andy realized she’d been daydreaming.

“Yes! Sorry,” she said, smiling at James.

“Try this one,” Miranda said, nodding her head towards one of several dark green bottles open on the counter.

“I’d love to.” Andy glanced around for bread until she realized that James was holding out a little cup of oil for her to sip. She couldn’t think of anything quite so stomach-turning, but this evening had been entirely her idea, and Miranda, against all odds, seemed to be having fun, and there was no way she was going to ruin it. She took a cautious sip. It tasted good but felt odd on her tongue - too slick. _It needed bread, desperately,_ Andy thought. _Or pasta. Carbohydrates._

“It’s delicious,” she said, and wondered how much of it she actually had to manage to avoid being impolite.

“I’ll take that one,” Miranda said, as if Andy’s assessment had confirmed her opinion.

By the time they sat down to dinner, Miranda was an Eataly believer, inasmuch as she would ever be. “I quite like the concept,” she said. “Of course it’s hardly ‘Italy,’ and the name is pedestrian, but it’s not bad.”

Andy smiled, and expected to feel just as she had whenever she’d managed to impress Miranda, but there was no moment of pleased self-congratulation. Instead, she found herself wanting more - more Eataly, more time in this day, more nights like this one. It was, she realized, not unlike how she’d felt on her first date with Nate, when her overarching thought had been _this is wonderful, how do I make it happen again?_. It was a confusing similarity, but she pushed it out of her mind. She was hardly going to let herself diminish her pleasure in the evening. Besides, Miranda seemed to be ordering virtually everything on the appetizer menu, and her main goal in coming to Eataly had been the food, so she settled back to enjoy it. Besides, fresh oysters had been out of her budget for so long that she was determined to savor every bite.

“So,” Miranda said, picking up an oyster shell from the ice. “How are you?”

“Adjusting,” Andy said, taking a sip of her wine. “It’s weird living alone again.”

“I know the feeling,” Miranda said. “Of course I have the girls, but still, it’s strange. You have someone and their things in your life for so long, and then in the space of a day they just remove themselves from your life, clutter and all.”

“It’s a horrible feeling,” Andy said.

“It wasn’t so bad with Stephen,” Miranda said, “once the shock wore off, of course. He wasn’t the worst.”

Andy nodded sympathetically. “It must have been rough with their father.”

“Hardly,” Miranda drawled. “The divorce itself was difficult, but adjusting? Goodness no. I was simply relieved the first night I came home and my house was my own again, mine and my girls’.”

Andy hadn’t ever cared much for Stephen, or for either of his predecessors, to be perfectly honest, but she could appreciate how difficult it must have been to actually live with Miranda. It didn’t surprise her, but that still didn’t make it any less daunting.

“Maybe you’re just the type who isn’t meant to share living space,” Andy offered. “My friend Lily is like that, she just refuses to move in with her boyfriend and it’s been something like four years.”

Miranda took a long sip of her wine, and kept her eyes on the glass after she put it back down, watching the little beads of condensation slide down to dampen the tablecloth. “I don’t think so, Andrea,” she said, and if Andy didn’t know better, she’d have thought she sounded sad. But then their salads arrived, and Miranda began to ask about work, and the moment was gone.

~

As Roy sped across the city to her apartment, Andy reflected on the evening, and it occurred to her, as she juggled her keys and the box of pastry, that Miranda hadn’t actually mentioned who she’d meant when they’d gotten on the subject of the divorces. She supposed it could be her second husband, but Andy knew so little about him apart from the fact that he was French, that she imagined he hardly signified anything for Miranda. It had been an odd moment, an odd conversation, and it stayed with her, even as she dressed for work the next day.

She put it out of her mind, however, when Cassidy turned up at the building concierge promptly at 4:00, dressed in her school uniform and carrying possibly the coolest leather satchel Andy had ever seen. “I love that,” she said, guiding her towards the elevators.

“Thanks!” Cassidy said. “Zac Posen. I told Mom I wanted something professional, but chic.”

Andy stifled a smile. “You look way more professional and chic than most of us. This is us!”

She’d sent around an email that morning explaining that today would be the first of Cassidy’s two-week internship, and asking that everyone be friendly and polite and to please, please remember to watch their language. It was fun to watch Cassidy move from desk to desk, introducing herself and obviously working hard to remember names and faces. Jim had even put together the same rookie welcome swag bag that he did for all new hires: a mug emblazoned with the Mirror’s logo, branded notebook and pen, and, to Andy’s surprise, a bag of M&M’s. Then she remembered why: in her swag bag, she’d gotten happy hour drink tickets. They’d even set her up with her own email address; she knew it was such a little thing, and had probably taken IT less than a minute to do, but Cassidy seemed so utterly pleased with it that Andy made a mental note to thank them.

She connected Cassidy’s laptop to the wifi while the girl settled in at her desk.

“So am I like your assistant, Andy?” she asked, fairly brimming with questions.

“In the sense of getting me coffee? No. But you will be helping me with the two features I’m currently working on, and any other assignments that get thrown my way.”

Cassidy bit her lip. “Does that mean I’ll get to write something?”

“We’ll see how it goes! I’d like to get you your first byline, but that might not be something we’ll be able to do in these two weeks. There’s a lot to learn.”

The next two hours went by quickly, with Jim sending her over a brief piece to copyedit before it published to the site. Since it wasn’t anything pressing - at least, Andy was pretty positive that blurbs about the drunken antics of _Jersey Shore_ ‘stars’ were only of interest to themselves - she did it slowly, walking Cassidy through each step and introducing her to proper shorthand.

At five to six they gathered their things to wait outside for Roy. Cassidy seemed engrossed in her phone, entirely different from the way she’d been earlier.

“Caroline’s texting me,” she said, tiredly, after a moment.

“Is everything okay?”

“I guess,” Cassidy said. “She’s just really stressed.”

“Junior year is more difficult than senior year,” Andy said. “I hated junior year, there’s so much pressure. During your senior year, once the applications are all in, you can relax a bit.”

“She’s just not very happy,” Cassidy said finally.

“What does your mom say about it?”

Cassidy shrugged, and Andy had the impression that this wasn’t something they’d shared with Miranda. She looked up from her phone to smile at Andy. “It’s okay,” she said. “She’s just not having a good day. That’s all.”

“Good,” Andy replied, even though she didn’t believe a word of it. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” Cassidy said when Roy pulled up, sounding just as she had earlier in the afternoon. “Thank you so much Andy, this was really awesome.”

She disappeared into the car and Andy watched as Roy sped away. She had to remind herself, as she walked to the subway, that she barely knew these girls and was hardly in a position to judge whether or not something was wrong. She hardly knew their mother outside of a professional context, for all that she had enjoyed their evening out. Anything she read into the situation was entirely conjecture.

~

“You went to dinner with Miranda Priestly?”

Andy couldn’t tell if Doug was incredulous or aghast. “We went to Eataly.”

“At least she didn’t fly you to the Dorchester for a private meal with Alain Ducasse.’

“I’m impressed,” Andy said. “Since when have you been a foodie?”

“Since when do you socialize with the dragon lady?”

Andy sighed, and sipped her espresso. Caffeine had won out that night. “Because I like her, and she asked me out. I mean, not _out_ out, but she asked me to dinner, and it was nice. I’m helping her daughter with a school project.”

Doug shook his head. “I thought you were free, Andy.”

“Well, she came to my wedding, so that should have been your first clue.” Her tone was biting, but she couldn’t help it. She’d always been defensive when it came to Miranda, even from her earliest days working at Runway. That’s what Lily and Nate and even Doug had never understood: Miranda had never been just a boss. Andy had worked for plenty of capricious taskmasters, but Miranda had been different. She’d told her friends that it was because Miranda was uniquely good at her job and that she had things to learn from her. While that had certainly been true, she knew perfectly well that most bosses didn’t engender the kind of response she’d had toward Miranda, that need to defend to her parents and her friends.

“Touche,” Doug said. “I’m just surprised. What are you doing for the kid?’

“She’s my assistant for the next two weeks,” Andy said. “She’s doing a project on journalism, and she needed an internship. So her mother called me.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t just make her editor for the day at _Runway_.”

“Maybe she thought she’d learn more.”

“Maybe.”

Andy picked up the spoon on her saucer and began to fidget. “What’s up with you, anyway? I’m doing her a favor. There’s no need to give me such a hard time.”

Doug sighed. “I’m sorry. Things just haven’t been working out.”

“Trouble at work?”

“No, work’s fine. Boring. Fine. You know.”

Andy didn’t know, not really since Doug only talked about work when she asked him specific questions related to articles she was writing. Otherwise, she had no interest whatsoever in finance, and he hated discussing it.

“I set up Arthur with a rebound date,” he said after a few minutes. “You know, after what happened with you.”

“But Arthur and I weren’t dating. We didn’t even have a real rebound date. Why would he need a rebound date from my non-rebound date? We had a nice time.”

“That’s not the way it’s supposed to work,” Doug said. “He hated the girl and isn’t talking to me, and my whole idea has gone to crap.”

No wonder he’d been so weird. “You had an idea?”

“I thought it would be the next big thing: interim now, forever future. Like Match, but for people on the rebound.”

Andy smiled, hopefully encouragingly, even though the pitch had sounded better when Arthur had been making fun of it. “You can’t just have one setback and abandon a whole idea, Doug. I mean I could definitely see a niche market for it. The OK Cupid guy is doing pretty well for himself.”

Doug furrowed his brow and knocked back the last of his drink. “Maybe I need some distance,” he said.

“Could be,” Andy said. “But anyway.”

“So Miranda Priestly,” Doug said, abruptly. “What’s she like off the clock?”

“Surprisingly fun,” Andy replied, and settled in to catch Doug up.

~

The next few days passed without incident. As she’d expected, Cassidy was endearingly excited to learn, and had proven to be rather useful around the newsroom. On Tuesday Jim had set her the task of monitoring the Mirror’s Twitter page, encouraging her to interact with readers and discuss the stories. She’d been friendly and funny as their Twitter intern, but Andy was still surprised when, late Wednesday during the editorial meeting, she timidly proposed a Twitter chat for that coming Friday and Jim actually considered the proposal as carefully as he did any other. 

“What would a Twitter chat achieve for us? Or rather, why should you spend time facilitating that when you might be needed elsewhere?”

Cassidy took a deep breath. “Because we are running a review of the new Donna Tartt novel on Friday. From a marketing perspective this would be good because we could promote the review, and because it’s on the weekend, we could get readers interested in the book insert on Sunday.”

Jim nodded. “How would you get readers to participate?”

Cassidy glanced at her notebook. “We could promote it today and tomorrow. We could use trending hashtags on Friday - “ she began.

“I don’t see how that encourages more meaningful interaction than what we’re doing,” Jim said.

“What if we asked for Tweet reviews?” Cassidy asked quickly. “We could run the best of them on Sunday, maybe pick like five. We could tell everyone to check the paper on Sunday to see this week’s winners.”

This week’s winners, Andy thought, impressed. Cassidy thought ahead, already talking as if her pitch had been accepted. She wondered if young Miranda had been something like this, when she was just getting her start.

“I like it,” Jim said. "You can talk to Dana after the meeting and she'll let you preview the insert." 

“Thank you!” Cassidy exclaimed. “I mean yes, I’ll do that right away.”

Andy smiled for the rest of the editorial meeting, especially when she caught Dana, the arts editor, drafting notes for Cassidy. She was proud of the girl, especially so because she’d conceived this idea and pitched it entirely on her own. She’d known Cassidy had school newspaper experience, but that kind of initiative would serve her well when she was a freshman among many upperclassmen on staff at the college paper.

“Cassidy,” Jim said, as the meeting broke up, “you’ll need to file your story no later than noon on Saturday.”

Cassidy looked between him and Andy with a huge grin. “Yes sir!” she said, even though Andy could tell that what was really going through her head was _oh my god I have to text Caroline._

“I think this calls for a celebration,” Andy said as they left the meeting. “You first byline! I’m so proud of you.”

“It’s really nice of Mr. Elliott to let me do it,” Cassidy said.

“I’m not letting you do anything,” Jim said from behind her, and Cassidy whirled around. “You’ve done a good job moderating the Twitter feed over the past two days, and you pitched a good idea that builds on what you’ve proven you can do. That’s why you’re getting your first byline. You earned it.”

Cassidy looked like she was about to cry, but she managed a big smile. “Thank you sir, that means a lot.”

It occurred to Andy, watching Cassidy type furiously on her laptop, drafting an iMessage to Caroline, that it must mean a lot to her. Here was a kid - not really, she needed to stop thinking of her as such, especially since she much preferred this intelligent, creative teenager to the bratty kid she'd been - who had always had whatever she wanted, whenever she asked. It must be a powerful thing to be told that she’d earned it.

Andy decided, right then, to text Miranda and see if they couldn’t meet somewhere to do something special. She kept it vague, telling Miranda only that Cassidy had exciting news, so that Cassidy could make her own announcement. Miranda replied within ten minutes, with an address and a time. Andy stared at her phone for several moments.

 _80 Spring St. (Broadway & Crosby)_, Miranda had written. _7.30_.

Andy felt her eyes widen.


	5. V.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy, Miranda and the girls celebrate Cassidy's good news, but the excitement is somewhat tempered.

Andy had been dreaming of the duck shepherd’s pie at Balthazar for years - practically since she’d stepped off the plane from Chicago. In April she’d even tried to convince Jim to give her a go at filling in for the paper’s restaurant critic, or else serving as his unofficial date, but elderly Mr. Rubin, whom everyone called Mr. Rubin, even the editor-in-chief, hadn’t taken anyone with him since Mrs. Rubin’s passing eighteen months earlier. There was a note of melancholy about all of Mr. Rubin’s work since her death, as if his writing had lost its vitality when he had lost his dinner partner. Maybe that was when it had started, her doubting of Nate: when she realized that she didn’t love him the way old Mrs. Rubin and loved her husband, and the fact that Nate would gladly take someone else to dinner if she wasn’t around.

Mr. and Mrs. Rubin had dined at Balthazar one night not too long before her passing, maybe six weeks prior, perhaps. He’d written a glowing review a dozen or so years after his first, but an almost elegiac one; others had commented on it. Mr. Rubin never edited his work unless of his own accord, since his tenure predated all of them by decades, and he’d left it as it was. He was the kind of writer she aspired to be: someone who took an ordinary experience and turned it into something magically transporting, something that had nothing to do about the experience itself. His review of Balthazar had hardly touched on the standard elements of a restaurant review: instead it had been a commitment to memory of an experience, a preservation of what was. When she come across the review by chance some days after Mrs. Rubin’s funeral, Andy had read it and wept.

So the prospect of Balthazar was far greater than duck shepherd’s pie, even if Andy was absolutely over the moon that it was in her future. It wasn’t as if one couldn’t walk into Balthazar these days and get a table; it was possible, even though it was celebrity-spotting heaven. The point was that she wanted to go with someone, to realize this one last NYC dream not alone.  And she was glad, she decided - genuinely happy - to be going there with Miranda and her daughters. It was as if she couldn’t imagine going with anyone else. For whatever reason, it seemed right.

Miranda had left off the name from her text, so she inferred that it was meant to be a surprise for Cassidy. “All right Cass,” she said. “Get your things together. We’re going on an adventure.”

Cassidy laughed. “You texted mom, didn’t you?”

Andy smiled. “I did, and she’s made reservations at a surprise location.” They crammed into the elevator. “Subway or cab?”

“No Roy, huh?”

“Roy is supposed to chauffeur your mom around,” And said, “not us. We’re on our own, but I bet you’ll get a fancy ride back.”

“Cab,” Cassidy said. “Unless you actually want to hang out on the subway during rush hour.”

“Definitely not,” Andy said, and called a car from her phone.

“Mom did _not_ ,” Cassidy said, as Andy gave the address to the cabbie. “I saw David Beckham there once. He is gorgeous.”

“Apparently she did,” Andy replied, smiling. “Next week I think you should try for a feature article.”

Cassidy giggled, but then paused. “I actually have an idea for an article,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s ready to go to Mr. Elliott yet.”

“I’d love to look at it sometime.”

Cassidy frowned. “Maybe next week,” she said after a few moments. “I need to work on it a bit.”

~

Miranda and Caroline were already waiting inside, tucked into a quiet corner that faced out into the main dining room. Andy had spotted Miranda easily; she stood out, even in a room of well-dressed executives. When she’d gone with Miranda to shows or viewings, they’d never sat together. She’d grown accustomed to being seated far behind Miranda, or clear on the other side of the room, and seeking out her silver hair like an anchor. She’d told Emily that it was because she never wanted to be too far away in case she was needed, but the truth - the truth that had surprised her and that she’d known to edit away - had been that she wanted to keep Miranda in her sight. It felt at once novel and familiar to be walking towards her, knowing that there was a place for her at Miranda’s table.

“Not the best for celebrity-watching,” Cassidy said, jarring her out of her thoughts as they walked towards the corner booth. “But then we’re getting over that. People come to find mom, you know, and that always took the fun out of it anyway.”

Miranda and Caroline didn’t seem to be saying much; Caroline looked to be engrossed in her phone.

“Hi!” Cassidy said, sliding in next to Caroline and dumping her things on the floor. Andy winced. That Zac Posen satchel deserved far, far better.

She felt a little stranded, unsure of where to sit. There wasn’t much room next to Cassidy, which left her the choice of moving Cassidy’s things over, or sitting next to Miranda - Miranda, who didn’t willingly share her elevator.

Miranda slid towards Caroline, and Andy smiled. “Thanks,” she said, settling next to Miranda.

“Of course,” Miranda said. “We could hardly leave you out in the middle of floor.” Her voice was touched with humor, and Andy realized she was joking.

“I do appreciate that,” she said, gratified when Miranda seemed to laugh.

“So ladies,” Miranda began, glancing at Caroline until she turned her phone over on the table. “May I ask what we are celebrating this evening?” She looked at Andy but Andy nodded towards Cassidy.

“Well,” Cassidy said, “today at the editorial meeting I pitched an idea to the features editor and he liked it! I came up with the idea of having a Twitter contest, because I’ve been managing the Twitter feed you know, and Mr. Elliott says that not only can I do the contest, but I can do the write-up for the paper, too! I’m going to have my first byline!”

Andy looked over at Miranda, who was smiling broadly.

“I’m very proud,” Miranda said. “That’s excellent news.”

“We’re going to have a contest for the best Twitter book review. Whoever can impress me in 140 characters wins.” She said it with such matter-of-fact confidence that Andy had to bite back a laugh.

“That’s awesome, Cass,” Caroline said. “Are you going to let me win?”

“I have journalistic integrity, thank you very much!” Cassidy said, and Caroline laughed. “You can be the runner-up.”

“Would you excuse me?” Caroline asked, after a moment. “I need to use the ladies’ room.”

“Oh me too,” Cassidy said, jostling her drink as she stood.

“Come back quickly,” Miranda said. “We need to order and it’s a school night.” It was nice to hear Miranda being so maternal. Andy hadn’t ever pictured her saying it’s a school night while she was working at Runway, but Miranda had been married then. She hadn’t exactly stalked Miranda, but she’d kept up and knew that Miranda hadn’t been publicly linked to anyone since the divorce with Stephen.

“I trust she did that on her own?” Miranda said lowly, watching the girls as they made their way towards the bathroom.

“All of it,” Andy said. “I had no idea! We were sitting in the meeting and she just piped up with it. Jim took her aside afterwards to tell her that it wasn’t just because she’s our intern, but because she’d earned it doing such a good job with the Twitter page. I’m really proud of her.”

“I do appreciate your taking such an active interest in her,” Miranda said. “I knew you would be good with her.”

“She’s great, Miranda,” Andy said. “And of course I’d love to get to know Caroline, too.”

“That’s very kind,” Miranda said. “Caroline is my sphinx, however. Cassidy has spent her life speaking for the both of them, if you can can believe it.”

“I’m not surprised,” Andy said. “Cassidy talks a mile a minute.”

Miranda smiled. “So different from me, whereas I see so much of myself in Caroline. I thought she and I would have had that at the very least. But she’s my sphinx.”

It was a curious choice of words, Andy thought, especially now that Miranda had repeated it. “I don’t know how much there is to figure out about her, Miranda,” she said, after moment. “She’s just quiet.” But she didn’t know Caroline in the least, and her words sounded like empty platitudes to her own ears.

“Hmm,” Miranda said, noncommittally, just as she did while trying to put her finger on which accessory ruined a particular look. “There is something I’m missing, nevertheless.” She took a sip of her wine and ran her finger around the stem.

“Won’t you come back to the house with us after dinner?” she asked as the girls came back into view. “I’m sure we won’t have any time to talk once they return.”

“Of course,” Andy said. “I’d love to.”

Cassidy and Caroline walked closely next to each other, their heads bent and faces expressionless.They reminded Andy of the secretive sisters in The Twelve Dancing Princesses, who snuck off to dance in the twilight kingdom each night, suffering under the weight of their subterfuge. Whatever it was that was bothering Caroline was clearly not a secret to her sister; Cassidy was simply better at hiding it.

“Caroline got a first in debate,” Cassidy said as soon as they sat down. “Isn’t that awesome?”

“That’s excellent news, Caroline,” Miranda said, but Caroline was already poking at her phone. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” Caroline said quietly. It clearly hadn’t been her choice to mention it.

“I did forensics in high school too,” Andy said. “That’s a great achievement, Caroline! Sometimes the biggest competition is against your teammates.”

“They’re going to an invitational at Yale in a month and a half,” Cassidy said excitedly. “Hey, if you guys win we could cover you in the paper! Or Andy could, at least.”

“Yeah, that’d be great,” Caroline said, and Andy had the impression she thought it would be anything but.

~

“They talk to each other,” Miranda confided after she poured them a drink in the living room. The girls were safely upstairs and the French doors were closed, but she was whispering as if they were in the next room. “On their phones, you know. They do it at dinner at home, too.”

Andy frowned. “How do you know that?”

Miranda sighed, and looked almost annoyed at herself. “I borrowed Cassidy’s computer - with her permission, before you ask me - and she’d left her messages up on the screen. I didn’t read through them, but I could see the timestamps.”

“What do they talk about?”

Miranda shrugged. “What all teenagers talk about I suppose. What I saw had something to do with Channing Tatum. Didn’t we have him on the cover with Amanda Seyfried?”

“Probably,” And said. Of course they did, if Miranda said it. She also doubted that Caroline and Cassidy spent every dinner texting about celebrities.

“I wish I knew what they were actually saying,” Miranda said. It was terribly introspective of her, Andy thought. She was much as she had been that night in Paris when she’d learned of Stephen’s divorce, except this time, Andy knew - or at least was fairly confident - that she wouldn’t be summarily dismissed.

“It’s probably like you said,” Andy replied, after a moment. “Teenage stuff.”

“What did you talk about when you were a teenager?”

Andy blanched. “Um, homework. Debate. My mom spent most of high school sick, she had breast cancer. So much of what I remember from high school is from that perspective, if that makes sense. I didn’t exactly have the typical high school experience.”

“I’m sorry,” Miranda said. “I had heard about her passing via Emily not long after it happened, and I thought about sending something, but I didn’t know if it would be welcomed.”

“It would have been,” Andy said. Of course it would have been.

Miranda shrugged, and crossed her legs. “It was not terribly long after Paris.”

“True,” Andy said, and left it at that.

“Is that why you invited me to the wedding?” Miranda asked. “Because your mother couldn’t be there?”

“Good _God_ no,” Andy said with as much vehemence as she could manage. The last thing she wanted to do was conflate her mother with Miranda Priestly of all people, least of all when Miranda was seated before her in an extremely flattering fitted blouse, with pearls disappearing behind her collar. “Definitely, definitely not.” She paused. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. Obviously.”

“I didn’t take it as such,” Miranda said mildly.

“Is that why you gave me the ring? An heirloom because you think of me as a daughter?”

“Goodness no,” Miranda said, her voice curiously soft, and Andy thought she detected a bit of shock. “Certainly not. It was bought expressly for you at Sotheby’s.”

“Then you see what I mean,” Andy said. “I invited you because I wanted you there, and I’m so glad you came.”

“But why, Andrea? I must admit that I’ve been wondering that since the moment the invitation crossed my desk.” All of a sudden her tone had changed; the familiarity in which Andy had been reveling was suddenly gone.

“Why did you come?” Andy countered.

Miranda looked flummoxed before she seemed to consciously school her face expressionless. Andy wondered what she wasn’t saying before Miranda even said a word.

“Because I wanted to,” Miranda said simply.

“That’s why I invited you,” Andy replied, and she couldn’t tell if Miranda looked relieved, disappointed, or otherwise. 

She watched Miranda closely over the top of her glass; she’d always done that, from her earliest days at _Runway_. There was something about Miranda that she found absolutely captivating. At first it had been simply the way she looked: Miranda was like no one she’d ever seen. Then, later, there had been more: her voice, cultured and elegant; her wit, that no one else seemed to appreciate; her capricious idiosyncrasies, which Andy frequently recognized for the insecurities they masked.

She’d known, in the back of her mind, that she liked girls as much as boys for a long while.It wasn’t something she always thought about; just something that was. She’d recognized it one day in high school, when Katie Connolly had kissed her after lacrosse practice. It had been nice, and they both giggled, and she was sure that Katie had planned to ask her out, but that had been that. The last thing Andy had needed during high school was the pressure of coming out as anything other than what people had already assumed her to be, and to be fair to Katie, she’d deserved more than that. They’d stayed friendly and Andy had a blast at prom as Katie and Erica’s third wheel.

It also wasn’t as if she’d ever pursued a girl, but then she’d never actually pursued anyone: Nate had asked her out, one day after a Dance Marathon organizational meeting; she’d said yes, and that had been that. Liking girls or not liking girls hadn’t really been relevant after that; she and Nate had been together for so long, and she’d been happy. And besides, she wasn’t the cheating type - when she realized she wasn’t happy, she’d ended the relationship.

Liking Miranda was something of a shock, however, even if liking girls wasn’t. For all that she liked looking at Miranda, she’d never put her finger on why, exactly. Perhaps she hadn’t wanted to figure it out and call it for what it was. Tonight, looking at Miranda, watching her lean back into the sofa, lines creasing her forehead, her blouse wrinkling after a long day, it was patently clear: she’d sought out Miranda, however subconsciously, because she she found her so captivating, and because the memory of her had never stopped haunting her, even four years later.

“Are you all right?” Miranda asked.

Andy hadn’t realized she’d been so quiet. “I’m sorry, Miranda,” she said, but her voice sounded funny. “I was just thinking about why I invited you to the wedding.”

“Oh?” Miranda sounded confused.

“I really did want you to come to the wedding. I wanted you there, and that’s why I invited you and hoped you wouldn’t toss it.” She paused. “Also why I invited Emily, I figured that might help. Of course she didn’t even RSVP.”

“That’s what you said before,” Miranda said.

“But that’s not the whole reason of why I invited you,” Andy continued.

“Why else?” Miranda was getting impatient, to Andy’s amusement.

“I’m hesitant to tell you,” Andy said, “because I don’t want it to compromise this - whatever you want to call this - between us.”

“Friendship,” Miranda supplied, dryly.

“Yes,” Andy said. “I wouldn’t want it to compromise our friendship.”

“Short of telling me you have an as-yet undetected felonious past, I wouldn’t worry,” Miranda said. “And since I know you passed the background check for Elias-Clarke, I know you don’t.”

“Right,” Andy said. “Look, I invited you to the wedding because I wanted to see you again, and I had no idea when I sent the invitation that there actually wasn’t going to be a wedding - “

“Thank God there was not,” Miranda said.

“And I really did cancel the wedding because I knew it was the right thing to do, because I couldn’t see a happy future with Nate, and it’s easier to not get married that to get divorced.”

Miranda nodded; she of all people would know that.

“But I invited you because I wanted to see you again, and I thought this would be my best bet. Because in four years I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”

She couldn’t read Miranda’s expression. She had her attention, that was certain. But there was something odd about it; Miranda was watching her so intently that Andy almost thought she could call her hopeful.

“I’m bisexual,” Andy said. It was the first time she’d said it out loud to anyone but herself and Katie Connolly, and her heart was pounding. She wondered if it got easier later on.

“Okay,” Miranda said slowly. “I hope you didn’t think that would compromise anything for me.”

“No!” Andy exclaimed. “No, I’m just not used to saying it. Yet. Um.”

Miranda smiled slightly. She looked so lovely like this, Andy decided, between the tiredness and the glow of the lamp and the look of relaxation, that she wished she could capture the moment and keep it forever.

“So yeah. Anyway. The truth is that I haven’t stopped thinking about you because I think you’re beautiful, and I’ve always wanted to meet you - how you are just like this, not in the office. I knew I would like you and I do. And I wanted you to meet me, the real me, because I hope you would like me, too.” It was clumsy, but she supposed it got the point across. Short of a declaration of love, which would be utterly precipitous, it was the best she could do.

“Oh Andrea,” Miranda said, and leant forward, resting her arms on her knees. “I do like you, and I did before.”


	6. VI.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy does some explaining, and learns something new.

Miranda’s words took her completely by surprise. She wasn’t sure what exactly she’d been expecting, but it certainly had not been this. “That makes me really happy,” she said quickly, since Miranda obviously deserved a reply.

“I’m glad,” Miranda murmured. She sounded unsure, hesitant, as if she had been searching for words and these were the best she could do. The last thing Andy expected of Miranda was that her bisexuality would throw her off, so there had to be something that she was missing or that Miranda was simply not saying.

“I guess I’m not really being clear,” she said, after a few minutes. Perhaps the problem was with her, with the way she’d spoken around her feelings as she had. “I had a dream about you, you know.”

“Really?” Miranda asked. She leant further forward, and Andy wished that she’d come closer. But Miranda, for all that Andy knew her to be assertively driven in the office, seemed to be consciously checking herself: keeping her voice deliberately neutral, her body language reserved, and most of all, keeping the distance between them.

Andy stood up until she was standing before her. It felt odd to stand while Miranda was seated, almost as if she was back in the office, with Miranda barking orders at her left, right, and center. She sat unceremoniously on the floor, crossing her legs and leaning back on her hands. Now it felt like a proper heart-to-heart. Miranda looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“I had a dream about you after the wedding, when you told me to keep the ring.”

“Really,” Miranda repeated.

“I told you about this date I went on - well, it wasn’t really a date, but that’s besides the point - and we were talking about it, and you laughed. Like really laughed, laughed because you were legitimately amused, not because you had to. And it was the best, most wonderful, most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And I woke up and basically decided that I wanted to make you laugh like that in real life.”

“I laugh more with you than I have with anyone, save my daughters,” Miranda said.

“And you laughed at dinner at Eataly, and you were just as beautiful as I thought you’d be.”

“Thank you,” Miranda said. She sounded bemused.

“What I’m trying to say, Miranda, is that I’m interested. In you. Um, not just as a friend."

Miranda shook her head, her forehead creased. From Andy’s vantage point she seemed older than she was, but perhaps it was simply the light. “You can’t possibly,” she said.

“It’s true,” Andy said. “Do you hate me?” It was juvenile, but she hoped Miranda would laugh.

“Of course I don’t!” Miranda exclaimed, as if Andy had jolted her out of her thoughts. “I couldn’t possibly.”

“That’s good then,” Andy said, in what she hoped was an encouraging tone. “Right?”

Miranda slipped her hand beneath the collar of her blouse to rub the back of her neck. She seemed preoccupied. “The ring belonged to Brooke Astor,” Miranda said, after a moment,as if their previous exchange hadn’t happened. With Miranda one could never be sure if a rapid change of subject meant that the former subject would be dropped and completely forgotten, or if she’d simply had something else on her mind. Andy hoped it was the latter, because she couldn’t possibly imagine having to do this all over again.

Miranda nodded at the ring, sparkling in the light on Andy’s hand. “It was in fact a recognizable part of her collection. I bought it at auction two years ago or so. Your wedding was the first occasion where I might reasonably have given it to you.”

And decided against telling her that it was bad form to give the bride a ring on her wedding day, and she had no idea how on earth Miranda had expected her to know that the ring belonged to Brooke Astor, of all people.

“She was an accomplished writer and editor,” Miranda continued, “and blue diamonds represent new beginnings, or so I’ve heard. The meaning behind it seemed appropriate for your wedding.”

“Which you hoped wouldn’t happen.”

“That’s besides the point,” Miranda said. “It seemed most appropriate in the event that the wedding did occur. Brooke Astor pursued her career in a time when it was practically unheard of for married women of her status to work. I wanted you to remember your potential. Your then-fiance did not seem to have the same estimation of your work as you did of his.”

“He was frustrated when I worked for you because I never had time for anything else,” Andy said. “When I began at the Mirror, things were different.” Mostly.

“It communicated a lack of respect for you, and me,” Miranda said. Andy had no idea how she could so utterly despise someone she’d met for perhaps a fraction of a second, if that, but Miranda’s tone was practically dripping with derision.

“You are correct in that Nate was never as comfortable with my hours as he expected me to be with his,” Andy said, “and that was part of the reason why I called off the wedding.”

“I thought the ring belonged with you,” Miranda said. “I knew it would suit you.”

“I love it,” Andy said.

“I’m glad.” Miranda sat back heavily against the chair, and Andy would have given anything in that moment to know what was going through her mind. “Why did you tell me all this now?”

Andy sat up straight. She’d been expecting a question of this sort; after all, Miranda liked to know every angle of a situation so she could determine the best response. Andy supposed it was a defense mechanism. “Because I wanted you to know,” she said, because it was the truth. She’d told enough lies to keep her relationship with Nate afloat - lies of omission, white lies, exaggerations, they were all lies, in the end - and if a relationship was to somehow come out of this, they were not beginning it on anything other than the utter truth. “Because I hoped that you might be open to trying something new. I mean, I know that you -”

“You don’t know a thing about me,” Miranda said. Her words were biting but her tone was oddly soft.

“You don’t know what I was going to say,” Andy countered. Once she would have been entirely taken aback, but she knew Miranda better now, even if Miranda apparently disagreed. Miranda was capricious, but she was not illogical. Once Andy had understood that, working for her, anticipating her wants, finishing her sentences, and smoothing her way had made perfect sense. There was a reason why she had been chosen to go to Paris instead of Emily, and it was that she’d been damn good at her job, and that had been down to figuring Miranda out. Most of the time.

“What were you going to say, Andrea?” She sounded tired, not infuriated. Andy took that as a positive development.

“What I was going to say was that I know that you are straight, and I know that you definitely shouldn’t try to change people, but sexuality is fluid, as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you - “

“I’m aware,” Miranda said.

“Right, and so you know, you never know who will be open to things. And since I like you, I thought it would be worth a shot.”

“What would be worth a shot, Andrea? What exactly?”

Andy looked at her, trying to puzzle her out. “A date. A gelato date at Eataly, since you wouldn’t go last time. I want to take you out for gelato.” She hoped that it didn’t sound as if she’d thought it up right on the spot, which of course she had. But gelato sounded good - really good, and if it wasn’t a quarter to twelve, she’d have half a mind to run out and get some.

“I don’t like the gelato at Eataly,” Miranda said, even though Andy knew perfectly well she’d never had it before. “I want to go somewhere else.”

“Okay,” Andy said. “I’ll find the best gelateria in the city, and I’ll take you there. Okay?”

“Okay,” Miranda said, as if Andy had stunned her into agreement.

“See, I really do know you well,”  Andy said. “I know your weak spot is ice cream you’ve convinced yourself is healthier because it’s Italian.”

Miranda smiled. “I suppose.”

It was a frustrating end to the conversation, Andy decided. There was something Miranda hadn’t said, something she’d kept back and secret. But she’d won her gelato date, something she hadn’t even known she’d wanted to do, and her own secret, for her part, was out in the open. And Miranda, knowing that, had wanted to go out too. It was a heady feeling, and one which easily won out over her lingering confusion at Miranda’s reticence.

“I’ll text you tomorrow,” she settled for saying, when it became apparent Miranda wasn’t going to say anything else. “Once I consult Zagat and Michelin and maybe call Marcus. He liked me when I worked at _Runway_.”

“It’s late,” Miranda murmured, looking at her watch. “Do you have a dress code at your office?”

“No, why?”

“I think it would be best if you were to stay here for the night, rather than go home. Roy is off the clock and you’d have to travel,” she said. “You will not fit any of my things, but Cassidy should have something suitable. She does, however, dress like a teenager, which is why I asked.”

Andy smiled. Miranda could be rather considerate, even if she managed to make it sound like quite the opposite. “I’m sure she’ll let me borrow something appropriate,” Andy said. “Thanks.”

“The guest room is on the second floor,” Miranda said. “You will find whatever you need in the attached bathroom. I would ask Cassidy to sort out an outfit tonight, rather than tomorrow morning. The girls are not especially communicative before they leave for school.”

Probably not unless you text them, Andy thought, but what she said was, “I’ll do that now then, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” Miranda said, though she made no move to get up herself. Andy stood up and made her way to the door.

“Good night then,” she said.

“Good night, Andrea.” Miranda spoke quietly, and Andy had to strain to hear her. She thought for a moment that Miranda might follow her, but the door remained resolutely closed,and Andy sighed as she made her way upstairs. Only Miranda could make what should be a happy thing into something she didn’t quite know how to categorize.

~

Andy knew, from her one foray into Miranda’s living area, that the master suite was to the right of the staircase, which meant that the girls’ rooms had to be to the left. Of course, there were two of them, and consequently two doors, and Andy felt quite like she had on her first night of bringing the book.

She finally knocked on the closest door.

Caroline opened it. “Hello Andy,” she said, her voice touched with surprise. “Is everything all right?”

“Oh! Yes, everything’s fine. Your mom suggested I stay over rather than trek back to my place, and apparently Cassidy has clothes that might fit me for work tomorrow.”

Caroline was very pretty - the prettier twin, if Andy was being honest, although Cassidy was certainly pretty too. Slimmer than Cassidy, who was more athletic and sun-kissed from lacrosse, with her paler skin and darker hair, Caroline seemed almost ethereal. She also seemed very, very thin, just as Andy had noticed the first time she saw her. Andy took a moment to really look at her face, to consider the prominence of her cheekbones and the translucence of her skin.

Caroline did look beautiful and fey, and Andy remembered well a time when people told her the same thing. And she also knew that she’d looked in the mirror and, with the help of her childhood doctor, recognized that ethereality for what it really was.

Fey. That had been the word her father had said to her, when he told her that he’d made her an appointment with Dr. Hughes. You look fey, he’d said, and the words had hung ominously in the air between them. She’d never heard it before, and had to go look it up. It hurt her to use the same word for Caroline, but it was true. She looked as if she might be spirited away.

Caroline smiled, a wispy little smile that Andy thought quite matched her personality. “She has a pretty green dress that would look nice on you,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s D&G but work-appropriate, depending on how tall you are. I’ll get it for you. Cass is already asleep.”

“Great! Thank you.”

Caroline slipped back into her room, closing the door behind her. Andy almost laughed, but caught herself. It seemed teenagers never changed.

“Here you go,” Caroline said, proffering the dress on a wooden hanger. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Not really,” Andy said. “Oh, just that - well, that would be super awkward.”

Caroline narrowed her gaze, looking just like her mother. “There’s a washer and dryer next to the kitchen,” she said with a smile. “You can wash your stuff there, mom won’t mind.”

“Awesome,” said Andy. “There’s just no way I’m going to work with dirty underwear.”

Caroline laughed. “You’re funny.”

“You clearly don’t watch enough comedy,” And replied.

“Probably not,” Caroline said, and went to shut her door.

“Caroline?” Andy asked. “Are you feeling all right? You didn’t seem to eat very much at dinner.”

Caroline bit her lip. “I’m fine, thank you,” she said. “Just a little tired, you know.”

“I do know,” Andy said, because if what Caroline was saying was what she thought she was saying then she did know, very, very well. “I do know, Caroline, so I could commiserate if ever you need to.”

Caroline seemed to visibly force a smile. “I’ll remember that, thanks.”

Andy stared at her closed door for the longest time, until she heard the click of Miranda’s heels on the slate in the entryway.

~

Andy’s first order of business, as soon as she sat down at her desk, was to call her dad.

“Dad, when I was sick in high school, what did I do that made you notice?” She felt bad to spring it on him with no warning, but she needed to know.

“You were just different,” he said, after a moment. “At first I chalked it up to mom being sick, but after a while, it was apparent that it wasn’t just that. Or rather than mom’s sickness had actually affected you more than I’d realized.”

“The thing is, I thought I’d done such a good job of hiding it,” Andy said.

“You had, sweetheart. I didn’t notice, you know, and I’m so sorry for that.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Andy said. “The whole point was that I didn’t want you to notice. What I want to know is what did make you notice after all.”

“What’s got you thinking about this?” Her dad sounded genuinely confused, and slightly worried.

“It’s about Miranda’s daughter,” Andy said. “She looks a whole lot like you said I looked. Fey.”

Her dad sighed. “But you’re all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m great. Miranda’s other daughter has been interning with me for the past week, and this is her twin. Miranda’s worried about her, but can’t put a finger to what’s wrong.”

“I’d be tempted to wonder how she could not notice if something like that was going on, but then I didn’t, so I’m hardly one to talk.”

Andy recognized the tone of his voice and smiled sadly, even though her dad couldn’t see. This was the one thing that had always bothered her, when she was sick and especially in recovery: that her father felt such guilt over it. She’d tried to explain when she was younger that there was no fault, and there was no way that he should have known what was going on, because she’d gone to such lengths to keep it from him.

“You seem to be seeing an awful lot of Miranda,” her dad said. “Is she doing something with the paper or something?”

“No, I’ve been seeing her socially,” she replied, and began twirling her pen.

“That’s pretty surprising. I didn’t know you were especially friendly.”

The word hovered on the tip of her tongue, but Andy couldn’t manage to get it out. “Yeah, it’s different now that I’m not working for her,” she said, after a moment.

“Sure bet,” her dad said, and changed the subject.

~

Andy left the office late that night, after rushing to assist with the paper’s election endorsements, having long since sent Cassidy safely on her way with Roy. She realized, just as she was about to go down to the subway, that she’d completely forgotten about Miranda and her gelato and her promise to text. She glanced at her phone; it was half-past eight. She supposed she could take Miranda out, especially since she’d effectively told her to clear her schedule, and Miranda had simply acquiesced. But she was tired, and in all honesty, she had no idea where to take Miranda in the first place. Every place she’d been to for gelato looked more like a bodega than a proper date-night restaurant.

It still wasn’t late, though; certainly not too late for Miranda. Andy considered her options. She could call Miranda and suggest they go out, and figure out where and how on her way over to the townhouse - or she could propose a date night in. She decided on the latter and wondered if she had enough time to get to Little Italy.

“I thought you’d forgotten,” Miranda said unceremoniously as she opened the door.

“I just got really busy at work,” Andy said, “and I’m so sorry. I didn’t forget, but I also didn’t have time to find us the perfect place.”

Miranda frowned, but glanced at the bag Andy was holding. “Where did that come from?”

“From the kind of place you wouldn’t even look at,” Andy said. “It’s really good and you’d miss out if I left you to your own devices. So are you going to let me in?”

“Of course,” Miranda said, and stepped aside. “I’ve asked the girls to stay upstairs tonight,” she continued. “May I take your coat?”

“Oh! Thank you,” Andy said. She’d practically forgotten about it.

“This was a classic,” Miranda said. “YSL from roughly 2006, I should think?”

Andy had no idea, except that she’d bought it from a high-end consignment store before Nigel let her shop the Closet. Miranda looked at the tag. “Hmm, yes. It suits you.”

Miranda motioned her down the hallway and Andy smiled to see that Miranda had set the table with crystal dishes and had a pot of coffee brewing.

“I didn’t know if you liked affogato,” Miranda said.

“That’s perfect,” Andy said. “Really. I didn’t expect you to do all this, I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”

“Nonsense, you’re my guest.” It sounded so formal that Andy practically winced.

She set the container of Tahitian vanilla bean gelato on the counter and turned to face Miranda. She looked beautiful, dressed in a skirt and deep blue blouse with a scarf collar, and now that Andy was looking at her properly, she could see that she had touched up her makeup.

“You look beautiful,” she said, and Miranda smiled.

“I wanted to look nice,” she said simply, as if she ever looked anything but.

“You always do.” Andy laughed. “Unlike me.”

“You make a lovely impression.”

“You say that now,” Andy said. “Just wait until you see me after my Saturday morning run.”

Miranda opened her mouth to protest, and then seemed to reconsider. “I shall evaluate your fitness wardrobe when the time arises.”

“Thanks,” Andy said. “Although I don’t think I have a fitness wardrobe, unless you count yoga capris a sports bra/tank combo.”

Miranda looked horrified. “You run in capris?”

“Yes, I do! Like everyone else who doesn’t want to run in shorts. They’re from Lululemon, if that makes you feel better.”

Miranda shook her head. “My,” she said, and Andy had a feeling that she might actually have been serious about evaluating her workout clothes.

For all her commentary about Andy’s clothes, however, Miranda seemed fairly quiet. It was as if she was an entirely different person at home than in the office. Andy had expected that, to a certain degree; the Miranda she’d met in her hotel room in Paris was not Miranda at Elias-Clarke, and the Miranda she’d seen in the townhouse that night, making excuses to try to placate her husband, was a Miranda she hoped to never see again.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” Miranda said. “But won’t you sit?”

Andy pulled out one of the bar stools and sat down, listening to the coffee maker finish its pot. Miranda sat opposite her, looking decidedly apprehensive. “It’s just that it seems like there’s something bothering you,” she said. “Something you haven’t told me, but that you’ve been mulling over. You’re doing that thing where you tap your lip, and that means you’re turning something over and over.”

“Yesterday I said you didn’t know me,” Miranda began after a long moment. “It was perhaps not the most elegant phrasing.”

“That’s okay,” Andy said, wondering where she was going with it, and whether or not she ought to scoop out the gelato.

“There’s something that I haven’t told anyone, but that I have suspected for a long time.”

“Okay,” Andy said. “Do you want some gelato?”

Miranda nodded, so Andy busied herself while Miranda sorted out her thoughts.

“The fact of the matter, Andrea, is that the reason I was unhappy in my marriages had relatively little to do with my choice of men, although God knows the last one was hardly a prize, but rather with the fact that they were men at all.”

Andy looked up from the container of gelato to find Miranda blushing. “Go on,” she said, as encouragingly as possible.

“You were hesitant to tell me that you are bisexual,” Miranda said. “I have been hesitant to tell you that I think I am a lesbian.”

“But you were married three times!” Andy blurted out, and wished she could take it back as soon as she saw Miranda’s face fall. “I’m sorry.”

“Is it so hard to believe that a woman of my age, from my generation, coming of age when I did, would try to fix it, so to speak, by marrying a man? Or that she would be so desperate to fix it that when the first marriage didn’t work out, she tried again? And then again?”

“No, of course not, Miranda - “

“And would it be so beyond the realm of possibility that she might, when a beautiful woman expressed interest in her, consider risking a very great deal to actually be in a relationship that feels right? Something she’s never had before?”

Miranda was impassioned, flushed almost. There were tears behind her voice, though her eyes merely glistened. She looked compellingly, angrily beautiful.

“I’m sorry, Miranda,” Andy said. Miranda was hurt, and worse, she had been the cause of it, because she’d been thoughtless and inconsiderate. “I didn’t for one second mean to diminish what you were saying by asking a silly question. I was taken by surprise, but that’s a rotten excuse for hurting you, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Miranda said, after a long moment. “But you understand, now.”

“I do,” Andy said, and covered her hand with her own, linking their fingers together. “I really do, Miranda.”

Miranda stared down at their hands in amazement. It occurred to Andy that Miranda had never been able to do this, had never had a woman tell her she was beautiful as Andy had, take her to dinner as they had done, or sit with her hand in her lover’s, waiting for coffee to brew.

“May I ask you something?”

Miranda nodded, and tightened her grip on Andy’s hand, as if she were afraid she would pull away.

“Do you really like me?”

“Oh yes, Andrea,” Miranda said. “I’ve liked you for quite a long while.”

Andy smiled. “So then you won’t mind if I do this,” she said, and hopped off her chair. She let her free hand trace Miranda’s cheek and the contour of her lips before she very gently guided her to her lips. Miranda’s mouth trembled beneath her own, as if she was about to cry, and so Andy did her best to caress her gently, to distract her and make certain she thought of nothing but this kiss.

 


	7. VII.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy gets an early-morning surprise visitor, and makes something of a breakthrough. This chapter includes discussion of disordered eating and allusion to depression; both will become larger themes later on.

As she walked home from the subway, Andy couldn’t stop turning over in mind all that had happened that evening. She was struck by the prospect of all the things they would share, all the firsts that Miranda had never enjoyed with a woman. She felt terrible for her, of course, for the many years in which she had felt as if she had to live a lie in search of happiness, but little pity; Miranda, after all, would feel none for herself. Andy could practically hear her explaining her reasoning - _we all do what is necessary for success and to achieve our goals_ \- and the twins, of course, were the product of one of those desperate marriages, and Andy knew that they were Miranda’s most beloved treasures. But part of her - the part she wasn’t nearly so proud of at this particular moment - was thrilled at the prospect of sharing so many of these firsts with Miranda. _She_ had been Miranda’s first kiss with a woman; _she_ would be the first to make love to her, the first to bring her breakfast in bed the following morning. She hated herself for thinking along those lines, of course, but she could hardly help it, and her head filled with all the things she wanted to share with Miranda.

Inside her apartment, she paced a path between the kitchen, the bedroom, and the living room, and if her mother had been there to see her, she’d have admonished her for wearing down the floorboards. What she wanted to do was text Miranda, even if it had barely been an hour since she’d seen her. She booted up her laptop and set some coffee to brew, but by the time she’d sat down on the couch with her coffee to do some work, she found herself browsing New York magazine for suggestions for the weekend. It was hardly productive, but Miranda Priestly had kissed her and she found it difficult to focus on much else.

~

Andy woke up to the sound of her second alarm, the horrifically and entirely falsely-named ‘alert’, which sounded like a repurposed siren from a construction site. It never failed to wake her. Unfortunately, it also meant that she had approximately an hour to shower, dress, and get to work, which was practically nothing in the city. There were some benefits to working somewhere other than _Runway_ , Andy decided, throwing her wet hair into a bun and doing her makeup almost as an afterthought. She flew down the three flights of stairs to the street and was just pulling the heavy door shut behind her when she heard a quiet voice call her name. She spun around. Caroline was standing there, dressed in dark jeans and an NYU sweatshirt, looking entirely unlike herself. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, and she was sporting a pair of dark oversize sunglasses, looking older than her age.

“Hey Caroline,” she said, after a moment. She considered her. “How are things?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you beforehand,” Caroline said, almost as if Andy had been expecting her.

Andy raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

Caroline shook her head. “There’s no classes today. Professional development for staff.”

“Oh,” Andy said, pulling her coat tighter around her. “That’s cool.” Caroline didn’t seem particularly inclined to say anything further, but if she waited any longer, she was going to be late. “I have to get to work,” she said. “You’re welcome to keep me company on the way.”

“Okay,” Caroline said, and fell into step with her on the way to the subway. They were halfway to the office before she spoke again. “You know how you said you could commiserate with me,” Caroline began, somewhere in the tunnel before the stop at Lexington Avenue. Andy had to strain to hear her. “I was wondering if maybe we could talk.”

“Absolutely,” Andy said. “As soon as we get above ground.”

“I realized when I got here that you have to go to work,” Caroline said as they stepped up into the sunlight. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s cool,” Andy said quickly. “Just give me a minute, okay?” Caroline nodded, and she whipped out her phone.

“If I promise that I’ll make the editorial meeting this afternoon,” she said, without preamble, when Jim answered his phone, “can I pull from my overage hours and take the morning off? My story’s filed.”

“I got the story,” Jim replied. “I’ll get it back to you with edits sometime this AM. And sure, take the time. Hangover talking?”

“No!” she exclaimed, indignantly. “Thank you very much. It’s more of a family crisis kind of situation.”

“No worries,” Jim said. “Everything okay?”

“It’ll be fine,” she answered. “Just important that I take care of it now.”

Caroline looked at her curiously once she’d hung up. “You didn’t have to take time off for me.”

“I wanted to,” Andy replied. “Sometimes important things come up. That’s why, whenever your future boss asks you to do some extra hours, you do them. You never know when you’ll need a favor back.” Caroline smiled tentatively. “Had breakfast?”

Caroline shook her head. Andy suspected as much. Cassidy ate a carefully planned diet because of her sports commitments, but she’d long had the feeling that Cassidy’s strict meal schedule was not something the twins shared.

“Are you a tea and crumpets kind of girl, or something else?”

Caroline brightened. “Can we go to the Ritz?”

Andy glanced down at their attire. “If they let us in, sure.”

“They’ll let us in,” Caroline said confidently, then seemed to remember her sweatshirt. “If you mention mom, that is.”

Andy sighed. Name-dropping it was.

~

Andy settled back against the booth to people-watch through the glass windows that looked out over the street. Beside her, Caroline did the same.

“This was a good idea,” she said, toying with her napkin. “Thank you.” They’d ordered tea, two-egg omelets, cheese for Andy and tomato for Caroline, and a selection of tiny pastries – croissants and pinwheels and tartlets – served on three tiered plates.

“Don’t mention it,” Andy said. She’d done her best to focus on her own breakfast and not Caroline’s, but she’d been happy at least to see that she’d eaten a good half of her omelet and had helped herself to bits and pieces from the pastry tiers.

“So you probably have been thinking that I have a problem with eating,” Caroline said, as if she’d read her mind. “So do I. I looked it up online.”

“What did you find out?” And asked, deliberately keeping her voice light.

Caroline sighed, her eyes fixed on her gold-rimmed teacup. “I’m telling you because I had a feeling you knew, and you said we could talk. But I’m also telling you because if I told mom, she would think it was her fault, or _Runway’s_ fault, and it’s not like that at all.”

“Okay,” Andy said.

“I’m not anorexic and I know I’m too thin,” Caroline declared, unceremoniously. “I don’t want to be this thin.”

“Okay,” Andy repeated. It occurred to her that this was the first moment in a good long while – perhaps since the wedding – where she’d actively wished for her mother to tell her what to do.

“I look at myself and I don’t like what I see _because_ I’m too thin.” She sighed. “I don’t know how to fix it. Fix me. Whatever.” She glanced down at the half-eaten croissant on her dish, licked her finger, and picked up some of the crumbs and confectioners’ sugar.

Andy took a sip of her tea, biting back her initial response, which was to say that _Caroline_ didn’t need fixing. “When did this start?”

“Like last year, I think. Maybe after Christmas sophomore year. I gained some weight freshman year, and I wanted to lose it.”

“Lots of people do,” Andy replied.

“Yeah, I know. I just got really careful about what I ate. I never went below 1200,” Caroline continued. “Anything lower than that isn’t safe, you know.”

“And then I lost the weight and I was happy, and I just kept on watching what I was eating. I figured I was being safe anyway.”

Andy looked at her questioningly. “So you’ll still eating a restricted-calorie diet? Even though you want to maintain, not lose?”

“I’m not sure,” Caroline said. “I don’t count as carefully now. At first I kept a journal, but then I got good at it, just eyeballing it, and I haven’t, for a while.”

It sounded, to Andy’s mind, much like what she herself had done. She’d started watching her weight because of lacrosse, and then it had just gotten away from her. She remembered, quite clearly, telling her therapist that she knew it didn’t make sense – how could she just let it get out of hand like that? – and her therapist’s firm reply that it made perfect sense.

“That makes sense to me,” Andy said. “Or at least it’s what I did. My mom was sick and I had stuff at school, and I kept on doing what I was doing, but I wasn’t paying attention to it anymore. But then when I wanted to stop – “

“You couldn’t,” Caroline filled in. “Yep. And you don’t know why. And then you feel worse, because you’re like, there’s no _reason_ for me to be like this, and it’s something you’re just doing to yourself and if you don’t have a real problem with your body, then you’re just being _ridiculous_ , and then you feel even worse.” She looked at Andy expectantly, waiting for her to say the magic words to make her better.

Andy sighed. “It’s about control, you know,” she said, after a long moment. “But you really need to talk with someone who’s trained in all this to help you figure out how it works. Seriously,” she added, when Caroline looked dubious. “That’s what I did.”

“Okay,” she said, finally. “I’m just not happy. Like not even that, because obviously everybody’s happy, you know, they have happy days and sad days. It’s like this is what I think about and things that used to make me happy don’t anymore.”

“I think sometimes it helps to have someone who knows the best way to get you to see the fuller picture, understand what’s going on, and figure out a game plan to fix it.” She took a gamble and wrapped her arm around Caroline. “And then you have people you talk to and commiserate with, because they know what you’re going through, and that’s cool because they’re just there to support you, not treat you.”

Caroline smiled, and to Andy’s surprise, hugged her back. “Thanks, Andy.”

Andy smiled. “Anytime. In fact, I think we should totally do this again, except maybe on the weekend.”

“Actually,” Caroline said, “I think we should make a tour of it. Go to the Russian Tea Room and the Waldorf and everywhere and have brunch.”

Andy laughed, and couldn’t bring herself to care that the girl’s plans would blow a good third of her take-home pay in pastry. “That’s an excellent idea.”

~

The rest of the day passed without incident, and when Cassidy turned up for her shift, saying nothing about Caroline, Andy stayed mum too. It was odd to go about their ordinary tasks – sending Cassidy to fetch something from design, cramming into the conference room for the Friday editorial meeting – and not acknowledge in the slightest all that had happened in the morning. Fortunately, Jim said nothing about her absence in Cassidy’s presence, but when Cassidy left, waving as Roy drove her off to _Runway_ to collect Miranda, she breathed a sigh of relief. She had a feeling it might have been something of a test for Caroline to not clue in her twin and it felt good to relax back at her desk, looking over the proof for her piece on Park Avenue philanthropy, without having to worry about accidentally spilling the beans.

Unfortunately the girls had been a distraction from their mother, she realized as she stepped through her door, dropping her keys loudly on the side table. In all that had happened, from her quiet morning with Caroline to the typical Friday flurry of activity with Cassidy, she hadn’t had a single moment to spare on Miranda. But now that she was home, rummaging through her empty fridge for dinner, it dawned on her that she hadn’t heard a word from Miranda all day. To be fair, she reasoned, sniffing an opened jar of tomato sauce, _she_ hadn’t contacted Miranda at all, either.

The phone rang just as she was wading through search results on the lifespan of jarred sauce.

“I heard you had breakfast with Caroline,” Miranda said, without so much as hello.

“Hi Miranda,” she replied, shutting her laptop. “And yes, we did. She surprised me.”

“So she told me,” Miranda said, and Andy was certain she could hear the wheels in her head turning the whole situation round. “She said that you were – and I quote – lovely and understanding and helpful.”

“Is that all she said?” As soon as the words left her mouth, Andy regretted them. She’d always had a habit of playing into Miranda’s semantic traps, and this, it seemed, was no different.

“Indeed,” said Miranda, with only a trace of self-satisfaction. “I was hoping you might enlighten me.”

Andy sighed. “I want the girls to like me and trust me, especially if you and I are going to – you know – give it a go. And they won’t do that if I turn around and tell you the things they tell me. I think you should talk to Caroline.”

“Caroline doesn’t talk to me,” Miranda replied. “I suppose I shall trust your better judgment.”

“If I thought it was something you absolutely needed to know right this second, Miranda, I would tell you. But I think it’s okay to let her tell you in her own time.”

“Very well.” Andy could just picture her, sat at her desk in the study, her head resting against her hand, her fingers toying with the stack of papers. She would have come home from work and loosened the buttons of her blouse; her scarf would lie loose about her neck. She would be wearing her glasses, she would be rubbing the bridge of her nose. She would be drinking tea.

“Why don’t you try talking to her again?” she asked, when the silence on the line made her think Miranda had hung up.

“They’re en route to East Hampton, to spend the weekend with their father.”

“Ah,” Andy said. “So. What are you up to?”

“I am not ‘up to’ anything,” Miranda said indignantly. “What are you up to?”

Andy laughed. “Trying to find something to make for dinner. Hey, do you know how long tomato sauce keeps?”

“No,” Miranda replied, incredulous, as if she didn’t know why Andy had even bothered to ask.

“Neither do I. I think I’m going to order in some Chinese. There’s this place around the corner – ”

“Don’t bother. I shall join you,” Miranda said imperiously, and unceremoniously ended the call.

Andy glanced around her apartment and rather thought she’d never been more grateful in her life for the fact that she took after her parents and kept a neat house.


	8. VIII.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy learns something new about Miranda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for continuing to read this story (and poking me to write) during my long hiatus. I hope you enjoy the chapter!

"You really don't have anything in," Miranda said, having rummaged through what seemed like every cabinet in Andy's galley kitchen. Her disappointment was more amusing than anything else; Andy knew perfectly well - as did Miranda - that the kitchen at the townhouse was kept meticulously stocked by staff. Andy rather thought Miranda hadn't set foot in an actual grocery store in a good decade.

"Like I said, I was thinking about ordering in some Chinese."

Miranda turned away from the fridge, which she had opened for the third time, as if she'd expected it to miraculously fill itself. "We could go out," she suggested.

"I don't really feel like going out," Andy said. "I was looking forward to a night in."

"Hmm," Miranda said, and turned back to the pantry.

"I really don't think there's anything in the house," Andy continued, peering over towards Miranda, who had once again opened the pantry door and was poking around the boxes of cereal and cans of soup. "We could get Chinese and watch a movie?" She started flipping through the on-demand films. “I’m sure there’s something we both haven’t seen.”

"Do you like risotto?" Miranda asked, after a few moments of silence, as if she hadn't heard her at all. Her voice sounded far-away and vaguely triumphant.

"Of course," Andy replied.

"You have some rice," Miranda said, "carnaroli, not arborio, but it will do."

"Do for what? Hey, you know Nate probably bought that rice. It’s probably antique."

"Don't worry, it's vacuum-sealed," Miranda said, blithely, and Andy had to laugh. "You also have a bag of frozen peas and what appears to be pancetta." She cleared her throat. "And a surprisingly robust spice rack."

"Oh, I never know what to do with that," Andy said. " I don't really cook, so it's - "

"Yes, I can see that. If you have wine, we can have risotto."

Wine Andy had in generous quantities; she wasn't much of a solo drinker, and she preferred to play hostess than guest, so her friends' hostess gifts over the past few years had piled up. "What are you looking for, in particular?"

"Something white and crisp," Miranda said. "Preferably something drinkable."

"There's no such thing as cooking wine," Andy called, smugly, from the bedroom, where she kept the wine stacked neatly in her armoire. There was a bottle of Santa Margherita pinot grigio from last year's Friendsgiving, somewhere in there. "You only cook with something you would drink." At the very least, she had watched enough Barefoot Contessa episodes to know that you should only cook with wine you'd drink, and that only good vanilla was worth using.

"That's relative," Miranda said, raising an eyebrow at the proffered bottle. "That will do."

Andy bit back a smile. "That’s good." She stood awkwardly in her own kitchen as Miranda opened the bottle and poured a generous amount into a measuring cup. Andy wedged the cork back in and stuck it in the fridge, hoping it would chill.

"I thought you were going to find a movie," Miranda said, her attention fixed on the stove and her back to Andy.

Andy settled into her chair. "I'm okay," she said, after a moment. "I'll set the table." There was something mesmerizingly surreal about watching Miranda cook. She'd left her suit jacket on the sofa and had - precisely, carefully - rolled her shirt sleeves up over her watch, out of the way of the crackling pancetta. Andy didn't know why she hadn't thought of Miranda as kitchen-savvy. After all, she was downright particular about what she ate and how it was prepared; she was picky about the restaurants she frequented and she was knowledgeable about what she ate and drank. Andy supposed she had simply assumed that Miranda had staff who cooked for her, on those rare occasions when she felt like eating at home.

"I didn't know you liked to cook," she said, standing up to set the table.

"Just because one does not do something very often doesn't mean it is a chore," Miranda said. "I don't often have occasion to cook, but I enjoy it when I do."

She might have been out of practice, but she was skilled, however; Andy could tell by the way she drained the pancetta, by the way she swirled the wine over the rice, completely unflustered by the sudden rush of steam that Nate always warned her about. She laid her good dishes on the table and dug out the cloth napkins that made a yearly appearance at Friendsgiving. She was setting out silverware, an endearingly mismatched set, or at least she hoped so, when she practically felt Miranda staring at her. It was all she could do to catch herself when she met Miranda's eyes. Miranda looked utterly transformed: the steam had sent tendrils of hair curling around her forehead and made her skin dewy; her eyes were bright and her lips glistened ever so slightly from her taste-testing. At some point, she'd opened the top three buttons of her blouse. She looked beautiful: less pristine, less elegant; messier, slightly tired, shifting her weight every so often from foot to foot. Beautiful in a way that Andy had never seen before. Andy met her gaze and smiled.

Miranda broke the spell by turning back to the rice. "I had asked why it is that you don't cook, Andrea," she said, reaching for the saffron threads and patiently crumbling them into the rice.

"You're beautiful," Andy said without thinking. "And I don't know how to cook."

"Thank you," Miranda said, glancing over her  shoulder and gracing Andy with a smile. "I am glad."

"Glad I don't know how to cook?"

Miranda laughed. "Glad you seem to find me beautiful," Miranda replied. "Of course."

"I do," Andy said, and hoped Miranda didn't hear the same echoes of a lovesick teenager as she did.

"I learned to cook from my grandmother," Miranda said. "More or less. At the very least I gained an appreciation for it from her. And I suppose I maintained that interest as an adult."

"I used to cook with my grandmother," Andy said. "She'd let me taste little bits of this and that as she went along. But she'd always know what needed more of something, and what it needed more of, and I was never good at that."

"Just good at tasting?"

"I guess so," Andy said. "What I lack in cooking I make up for in willingness to do the dishes, at least. And, taste-test."

"Come try this then," Miranda said, turning towards her and reaching out her hand. She seemed to realize midway through the gesture that there was no real reason to do so, and let her arm fall quickly, balletically, to her side. Andy stood and pushed in her chair, taking all of three steps to stand beside Miranda at the stove, and made a point of grasping Miranda's hand in her own. She plucked the spoon from Miranda’s other hand, gave it a swirl around the pot, and took a tentative bite. 

“Wow, that’s really good,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound so surprised. It wasn’t as if she was surprised that Miranda was a good cook, after all - it was more that she was surprised that she had managed to concoct something given the lack of ingredients. 

Miranda smiled. “I’m glad.” She took the spoon back, gave the rice a final turn, and set the pot down on the table. “Are you ready to eat?” 

Andy grabbed the wine from the fridge and filled their glasses before making a big show of pulling out Miranda’s chair. “It’s the least I can do,” she said, sitting much less elegantly in her own chair. “After all, you cooked.” 

“So I did,” Miranda said, her voice touched with bemusement. 

They ate in silence - the comfortable kind, the kind Andy had always liked, the kind of silence to which she knew Miranda needed to acclimate - until Miranda sat expectantly back in her chair, glass in hand. It was a good thing Andy was comfortable making conversation, because Miranda was apparently ready to talk.

“I’ve had a thought,” Miranda announced. “I’ve been preparing my quarterly report and I have recognized that we are underserving a significant demographic.” 

Andy raised an eyebrow. Technically speaking,  _ Runway _ , like many major organizations, had around seven articulated reader types, which were periodically revisited by a team from marketing and creative. They privileged three of them: the young fashionista; the corporate-minded young-ish professional; and the well-heeled “mature” woman. Miranda had  _ despised _ the term “mature.” When she’d started at  _ Runway _ , apart from misgivings about the lack of diversity in its targets, she’d been shocked that they were even able to segment their readership into so many groups at all. 

She belatedly realized Miranda was looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to respond. Andy smiled. “Fashion-challenged women who need to dress well for work but don’t know where to start?”

Miranda sighed impatiently. “Andrea, liking fashion is generally a prerequisite for reading a fashion publication.” 

Andy took a sip of wine to hide her smile. “I feel like you’re missing an opportunity to educate the unfashionably ignorant.” 

Miranda huffed. “I did some research into lesbians and fashion.” That did it; Andy sputtered into her wine and burst out laughing in what she was certain was a most unattractive way. Miranda shook her head and powered on. “And were you aware of the varying fashion identities within the lesbian subculture?” 

Andy snorted and the wine stung her nose. “I’ve never heard it described so clinically,” she said, after a moment. 

Miranda’s impatience was written across her face. “The point is that we aren’t catering to lesbians at all.” 

Andy looked at her glass and polished off the rest of her wine. “I think you’ve been thinking about this too much,” she said, hoping she didn’t let too much amusement creep into her tone. “Although I do think that it’s a good idea to look at  _ Runway _ ’s efforts to be inclusive of many different kinds of diversity and see where it could do better. And also, it’s more correct to talk about women who love women, rather than lesbians. It excludes bisexual women, like me.” 

“I was hoping we could have a discussion about this, Andrea. I think it’s really -  “

“I was hoping we wouldn’t talk about work at all,” Andy said. 

Miranda looked uncertainly at her glass before setting it back on the table. “What do you want to talk about?” 

“Sometimes you don’t have to talk at all,” Andy said. She reached for Miranda’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Come on, let’s go inside. The kitchen is hot.” 

Andy settled herself on the couch and waited for Miranda to follow. She had considered dragging Miranda inside by the hand, but thought better of it. She wanted Miranda to choose her, to leave the kitchen, where she’d set the boundaries and made the rules, and come somewhere different, somewhere less familiar, of her own accord. It seemed important for Miranda to do that, she thought, just as much as it was important to her for Miranda to come and sit beside her on the couch. 

She was contemplating going back to check on her when Miranda appeared in the doorway, drying her hands with a dishcloth. 

“I didn’t want to leave you with a mess,” Miranda said. 

“Thanks,” Andy said. “You didn’t have to do that.” 

Miranda tilted her head, somewhere in between acknowledgement and demurring. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“I’d like that,” Andy said. She meant to say  _ if you would like  _ but that wasn’t particularly true, and she didn’t want Miranda to doubt her welcome. 

Miranda arranged herself into a studiously casual pose, crossing her legs and draping an arm over the back of the couch. “I will confess to being unaccustomed to this,” she said, after a moment. 

“Well, I think that it’s totally normal for your first relationship with - “ 

“Not that,” Miranda said. “Hardly. I am unaccustomed to this kind of - “ She paused, clearly searching for the word. “ _ Leisure  _ in a relationship,” she finished a moment later. 

“I’m going to just be blunt and say that I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Andy said. “I mean, if there’s something I can do then I want to know, but it definitely seemed like you were perfectly comfortable before.” 

“Yes,” Miranda agreed, and silence fell between them again. She seemed to purposely avoid looking at Andy’s face. “I am accustomed to  _ doing  _ things in a relationship. To going to dinner or to the theatre or to a gallery.” 

“Oh,” Andy said. “Well, there’s a first time for everything.” Miranda shot her a warning look, and she quickly changed course. “I mean, if you didn’t know what it was like to not have activities as a buffer between you and your date while you were dating, it must have been an adjustment when you lived together.” 

“Quite,” Miranda said. 

“So it’s a good thing we’re figuring that out now,” Andy concluded. 

“I suppose,” Miranda conceded. “I don’t mean that I’m unhappy,” she said, after a moment. “I mean simply that this is new.” 

“That’s okay,” Andy said. “It’s new to me, too.”

To her surprise, Miranda shifted a little closer to her - just a little, but enough to assure her that Miranda wanted to be there with her. Andy met her halfway, so close that she could hear Miranda’s breath, so close that she could see the slight shine of her skin and the blurred stain of her lipstick, so close that she could see the crease of her makeup around the corners of her eyes and the first hints of a gentle roundness about her chin. So close that she could follow the light flush from her neck to where it disappeared below her blouse. 

“You are so very lovely,” Miranda murmured. 

“Thank you,” Andy said. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, you know.”

Miranda laughed. “I don’t know about that, Andrea, but I do appreciate the sentiment.” 

Andy gently brought her hand to Miranda’s face and ghosted it over her features. “You are so beautiful, Miranda.”

Miranda frowned, and without thinking, Andy leant forward and kissed it away. 

“Oh,” Miranda said as she pulled away. “Oh, Andrea.” And to Andy’s surprise, it was Miranda who pulled her close and pressed their lips together, Miranda who cradled her back, and Miranda who very tenderly cupped her cheek. Miranda was a gentle, tentative kisser, her lips trembling beneath Andy’s. Her breath came quickly and shallowly, as if there was an undercurrent of uncertainty - or worse, fear - in her kiss.

“It’s OK,” Andy said, easing them apart and letting her hand rest on Miranda’s chest. “You’re right with me, and it’s all OK.” Miranda nodded and pressed Andy’s hand closer, holding on as if she was afraid she would let go.

“It feels right,” Miranda breathed. “I didn’t think I’d ever know that.” 


	9. IX.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy and Caroline have a frank talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your encouragement! Your comments have meant a lot, even if real life has gotten in the way of my writing yet again. I really hope you enjoy this new chapter!
> 
> A note on the content: warning for disordered eating, anxiety, and depression. This chapter deals with disordered eating - not one of the major three eating disorders, and not graphically or particularly descriptively, but something a little different which may be a trigger for you. Andy endeavors to explain how it's different. Please be aware that this chapter includes a conversation about Caroline's experiences that may need to be approached with caution if this topic is a sensitive one for you. 
> 
> As I think I've said before - if not in the notes, then in a reply to a comment - Caroline's story is quite personal for me. This chapter was a difficult one to write, and reflects, to a certain degree, my own experiences, so please also understand that my approach to the topic is very much colored by that. 
> 
> If you find yourself in a similar situation to Caroline, I hope that you'll find a trusted friend, confidant, or responsible adult (counselor, teacher, or similar) who can help. Remember, there's no shame in how you feel! And getting help is brave.

At the start of the internship, Andy had worried that, having had a little taste of editorial decision-making, Cassidy would be bored by the other tasks before her. Much as she liked the concept of an intern in theory, in practice managing Cassidy’s daily work had proven to be more time-consuming than she had anticipated. For all that Cassidy was quite self-directed once a task was set before her, determining those tasks and ensuring that they aligned with the requirements of her internship necessitated significant planning on Andy’s part. And since she was currently on a deadline, and since Cassidy’s mother had monopolized her weekend, Cassidy was wading through several days’ worth of media alerts.

To her surprise, Cassidy attacked the task with interest, if not quite gusto, and didn’t allow herself to be distracted by checking Twitter for responses to her query. If nothing else, Cassidy was methodical and thorough in her work, even when there was something else tugging at her attention. That observation had formed the basis of Andy’s mid-internship review, and she’d identified it as a trait that would serve her well in her future career. She was so quiet, in fact, that Andy didn’t notice that she had spoken until Cassidy leant back in her chair and poked her around the divider between their desks.

“I think you should go to this one,” she said, conversationally.

“What’s that?” Andy replied, distractedly.

“Well, Columbia is hosting this symposium - “

“They always send those,” Andy said. “Universities send media alerts for _everything_.”

“It’s about implicit bias and journalism,” Cassidy said. “I think it sounds interesting.”

“But I’m not that kind of reporter,” Andy said. “I don’t write the kind of pieces where that really has any bearing.”

“We studied that in psych last semester,” Cassidy said. “I think the point is kind of that it impacts everything, except you don’t realize it. Half the time you don’t even know what your own biases are. So you don’t do anything proactive about it. So I think you should go.”

“Cassidy, in order for me to take time out to go to these things, there has to be a relevant angle for me to pursue,” Andy insisted.

“It’s our job to tell stories ethically. Figuring out how to do that, and how to avoid letting assumptions impact our reporting seems like one of the most important things we can do.”

Andy sighed. “I’m not an investigative reporter, but you’re right. When is it?”

Cassidy smiled. “Next Friday night.” She turned back to her MacBook, and Andy was just about to resume her work as well, when Cassidy said, much as she expected, “can I come with you?”

~

“She’s enlightened,” Doug remarked over drinks the next night. She’d met him at their regular place after work, where he’d grabbed a high-top and was halfway through his usual whiskey sour by the time she arrived.  His sport coat was draped over one of the chairs, and he leant heavily against it. It was hard to put her finger on it, and Andy couldn’t tell if something was bothering him or if he was just bored.

“I was kind of surprised, to be honest,” Andy continued. “I mean, she’s right, of course.”

“Totally,” Doug said, shrugging. It was annoyingly dismissive. “I met up with Arnold - ”

“Oh really? How’s he doing?”

“He’s met someone,” Doug said. “No thanks to me.”

“Just because you didn’t set up Arnold with anyone doesn’t mean your idea isn’t good.”

Doug finished his drink. “Well, so far I’m 0-for-a-lot.”

There were times, Andy knew, when it made sense to cajole someone into false cheer, and other times when distraction proved more effective.

“So Caroline got a first in debate,” she said, taking a sip of her drink.

“Who?” Doug looked genuinely confused.

“Oh, Caroline! Cassidy’s sister. Miranda’s other daughter,” she said. Doug’s eyebrows looked like they were about to arch off his head.

“Miranda’s _other_ daughter,” he repeated, taking another sip of his drink.

“Yes, she and Cassidy are twins,” Andy continued. “She’s apparently really into forensics. I was too, at that age.”

Doug stayed silent. “What?” she asked.

“You’re talking about these kids like you know them,” he said, after a few moments.

“Well, I do,” she replied. “I’m getting to know them pretty well.”

“You seem okay with that.”

“I guess I am,” she replied. It was strange, this tentative testing of the waters. She wasn’t about to tell Doug about Miranda like this but at the very least she wanted to get a sense of his reaction. Talking about the girls had seemed safe, but now she wasn’t so sure. She’d told herself to be prepared for some hostility, but this restrained, confused disapproval threw her for a loop.

“Is there some part of this story that you’re not telling me?” he finally asked. “Normally people don’t inherit kids that aren’t theirs because of an internship.”

“Miranda came over for dinner and made risotto,” she blurted. “Just the two of us.”

Doug straightened up in his seat, waiting for her to say something else. She realized, belatedly, that what she’d just said made no sense at all outside of her own head.

“Um, I think I’m seeing Miranda,” she added, more to the tabletop than to Doug. She traced the striations of the wood with her fingertip. They were so perfect she wondered if they could possible be real.

After a minute, Doug nodded. “For real?”

“For real,” she said. “I think.”

“Well, it makes sense now,” he mused. “You and the kids.”

She settled for nodding in reply.

“So overnight parenthood to teenagers. Are you, you know, there yet?”

“Um,” Andy said, when it became evident she needed to say something, and winced at the filler word. “Kind of?”

Doug sipped his drink. “So you think you’re for real seeing Miranda, and you’re kind of playing stepmom to her kids?”

“Basically,” she said. It sounded worse when he put it like that.

“Look, so Miranda has mellowed, that’s great. People change, and if you’re happy, I’m happy. And I get that she’s got kids, so they’re there. But that doesn’t mean you’re, you know, _ready_ to take on kids.”

“I really like the kids,” she said.

“Well sure, so long as they’re less bratty than they were before, I'm sure they're likable,” Doug replied. “But that doesn’t mean that you’re ready to _parent_ them.”

Silence fell uncomfortably between them. It wasn’t anything Andy hadn’t already thought to herself, of course. The girls were barely young enough to be her kids, in the first place. And they were hardly _kids_ , in the second place. They were teenagers who had dealt with enough stepparents floating in and out of their lives to know that they didn’t really need another one.

“I feel like maybe they don’t need another parent,” she said, thoughtfully. “But if we build a relationship the right way, maybe I can figure out what they do need.”

“And be that,” Doug supplied. “Is that what you want?”

“Honestly?” She said it as much for herself as for his benefit, needing the extra time the words afforded her to think through what she was saying. That was thing about people who knew you before you were who you are now, the people who understand the parts of you that you’d learned to smooth over with time, the people who share your history: they hold you to to things you say. “Yeah, I think I do.”

Doug nodded. “Okay. Because it would a shit thing to do, to set Miranda and these kids up for something you don’t think you’re ready for.” He hadn’t changed his posture hardly at all, but his voice was firm.

“I know,” she said, meeting his gaze levelly.

Doug knocked back the rest of his drink. “So the kid’s into forensics? Now there’s something I miss.”

“Ditto,” Andy said, and decided to let him talk for a change.

~

Doug’s words were all she could think of on Saturday, when Caroline texted her, out of the blue, to see if she wanted to meet for coffee. And even though she would have agreed before, it seemed like it carried more weight in light of their conversation.  

Caroline was waiting for her when she arrived at Starbucks. She was dressed for the changing season, in skinny jeans and a cardigan over a plain t-shirt, and was thoroughly immersed in her phone when Andy tapped her on the shoulder.

“I don’t think I have an eating disorder,” Caroline announced, apropos of nothing, as Andy was fumbling to hook her bag around the back of her chair. She finally dropped it on the floor and kicked it against the wall, behind her foot, and ignored Caroline’s look of mild disapproval. “What makes you say that?”

“I was doing some research online,” Caroline replied. “I read through the summary pages from the NIH and the Mayo Clinic. That’s not me. And I just felt _messed up_ , like I must be the only one. And that I'm selfish for doing this because I don't have a real problem and it should be something I can handle.”

Andy reached out to squeeze her hand. "It's not a question of real problems or not. If how you're feeling is impacting how you're living your life, then you have a real problem. And you need to find people to help you handle it. There's no shame in that." 

Caroline shrugged. “And then I  _hated_ myself for being relieved that I don’t have a serious medical issue that’s threatening my health, at least,” she said. 

“That is a relief,” Andy said, “even if you aren’t a doctor and can’t diagnose yourself.”

Caroline smiled. “I’m not a doctor, but I know myself. I read this and recognized myself.” She passed Andy her phone and stood up. “See what you think. I’m going to wait for our drinks.”

Andy glanced down and skimmed over the article, a short pop psychology piece that wasn’t trying to masquerade as medical advice but seemed firmly in the self-help camp. Not terrible, but certainly not enough. She looked towards Caroline, following her as she studied the little branded trinkets and read about the different kinds of coffee beans on display. After a moment, Caroline shifted on the balls of her feet, her heel scraping against the floor as she tucked one foot behind the other. It was a thoughtless change of posture, a simple shift in weight, and yet she looked as if she’d been carefully posed. Cassidy didn’t have that kind of effortless grace. Were Cassidy standing there, alongside her sister, she’d be bouncing through the arch of her foot, swaying to the music, pacing idly around the counter. Cassidy was always in motion, but Caroline could be preternaturally still, with the whole world spinning around her. She seemed that way now - at once just one girl among many in the throng impatiently waiting for their frappuccinos, and yet set quite apart from it.

The barista called their names and Caroline raked her fingers through her hair to push it away from her face before picking up their drinks.

Caroline handed her a napkin and her iced Americano, before settling in with her own frappuccino. “What did you think?”

It was the kind of question that left her exposed to so many pitfalls: say the wrong thing and Caroline might clam up, might get angry, might not confide in her any longer. _Caroline is my sphinx_ , Miranda had said, sadly, that night at Balthazar, and it ricocheted around her head now.

“I’m curious to know which part of this spoke to you,” she settled for saying.

Caroline tilted her head in reply. Not the wrong answer, but clearly not what she had been hoping Andy would say.

“I just feel like what they say a lot of the time,” Caroline said. “Like the part about monitoring what you’re eating as a way of managing stress or other stuff going on in your life that you can’t manage. Because what you eat is something you can manage. “

Andy nodded. “I felt the same way.”

“Well, you had an excuse. I don’t.”

“Hey now,” Andy interrupted. “There’s no ‘excuse’ necessary. It’s not something you’re choosing to do because you’ve got stuff going on. It’s the only way you know to deal with stuff that’s going on. And sometimes that stuff is one really big thing, like when my mom was sick, and sometimes, it’s little things that weigh on you. It doesn’t matter what’s giving you all that stress, because it’s not a competition. What matters is that that’s what you feel, and nobody should ever tell you that what you’re feeling doesn’t have a valid excuse. It doesn’t need one.”

Caroline had curled up on her seat at that, tucking her head on top of her knees. It was a long while before Caroline said anything, seeming content to play with the condensation on her glass and steal glances at Andy’s expression.

“Thanks, Andy,” she said, after a good long while. The whipped cream at the top of her frappuccino had begun melting into her drink, and she licked it off her straw. “So what did you do?”

“Well, I didn’t do very much at first. I didn’t want anyone to know, and I was pretty sure they hadn’t noticed anything.”

“But they did?”

Andy laughed. “Yep, pretty much everyone around me had noticed. But they didn’t know what to say, so it took a while before we talked about it and my dad insisted I go see a doctor.”

Caroline looked at her thoughtfully. “Well, you know. Are you going to make me see a doctor?”

Andy sighed. “I’m not going to make you do anything. What I am going to do is help you understand why I think that’s a good idea.”

“But it would be my choice?” Caroline asked. _Another test_ , Andy thought. She could see it in her eyes, and in the lift of her chin, a steely echo of her mother.

“It would be your choice up until it started affecting your physical health,” Andy said, carefully and slowly, wanting Caroline to pay attention to every word. “Because if it ever got to the point where your physical health was in danger, then I would have to tell your mom, and we would have to get you help.” She paused. “So don’t let’s get to that point.”

Caroline nodded. “Okay.” She pulled her straw out of her cup for more whipped cream. “So now what?”

Andy considered her for a moment. She looked less like a teenager almost ready for college and more like a little girl. She couldn’t really see the resemblance in either twin to the girls she remembered meeting only briefly during her time at _Runway_ , but she supposed that when they weren’t being outright hellions, they probably were sweet and docile and did things like scrape whipped cream out of cups with straws. How easy it would be to think of that little girl, and swoop in to fix things. How easy to give her a step-by-step plan, completely in line with what she, Andy, thought best - and make the problem go away. But that, she reminded herself, wasn’t what Caroline needed at all.

“What do you want to do?” she finally asked, because Caroline was a girl on the precipice of adulthood, and she was more than capable of making her own decisions.

Caroline finally perked up, and smiled, settling herself back in her chair properly and leaning forward on the table. “I’m going to sit and think about it for a while, and talk to Cass,” she said. “And then, we can talk to mom. And then we can go to someone who can help.”

Andy tapped her cup against Caroline’s. “Cheers to that,” she said, and Caroline laughed.

~

"Andy's here for dinner," Caroline announced as she unlocked the door. 

Miranda materialized from the kitchen at the sound of her voice.

"Hello darling," she said, looking Caroline up and down. 

"Hello mother, I've invited Andy for dinner," she said. "Where's Cassidy?" 

Miranda smiled. "She's in her room, I think. Did you -"  

"Okay. We'll come find you in a little while to decide about dinner," Caroline said. Her voice was soft, but it was clear that she wasn't interested in conversation.  

Miranda's face fell as she watched her head upstairs. “Hello, Andrea,” she said, after a moment, her voice touched with confusion. “Is everything all right?”

“With Caroline?”

Miranda looked off to the side, putting Andy in mind of Caroline not an hour earlier. “With both of you,” she said after a moment of thought.

“Caroline’s OK,” Andy said. “Can we go inside?”

Miranda clearly wasn’t expecting her - or anyone, by the looks of it - that afternoon. But Caroline had been sweetly insistent that she ought to stay for dinner that she couldn’t really turn her down - and since it’d been a full week since she’d seen Miranda, she didn’t want to, anyway. Miranda had opened the door wearing plain black slacks and a plain pullover top, with little makeup and her hair brushed through, not set. With a pair of sunglasses and boat shoes, she’d be perfectly dressed for brunch on the water in the Hamptons. Given that Miranda was typically dressed for the boardroom or the ballroom, with little in-between, Andy didn’t think she’d ever seen her quite this casual. Even when she’d rolled up her sleeves to make risotto in Andy’s tiny kitchen, she’d still been wearing a silk button down, dress slacks, and heels. 

 

“Certainly,” Miranda said. She hesitated, as if to reach for Andy’s hand, before turning towards her study.

“Hey,” Andy called, catching up to her, and slipping her arm around her waist. “Everything’s OK.” To her surprise, Miranda shifted towards her as they walked down the hall.

“I feel as if I’m losing the thread of everything in this house.”

“Well, maybe I can help with that,” Andy said. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Miranda had opened the windows in her study, and the late spring breeze carried with it the sounds of the city, which did well to cover the awkward silence. 


End file.
